Northern Vermont Snow Advantage vs. Rest of the Northeast

[Harvey]

I'd defer to an expert on this, but as someone who has watched a lot of Adk winter radar in his life...the lake effect just seems to diminish west of the bigger mtns. Lake effect can travel over the flatter areas incredibly far...like into Massachusetts...but farther north the hills seems to build gradually, and the snow drops out before it gets to Gore or Whiteface. There is Big Tupper....more snow but less vertical. No doubt that skimore knows how to watch the radar and find the fun.

The Greens have the hot setup...a north to south running spine. Still I never understood how the Greens can pull more snow out of it after it's passed over the Adks. Lake Champlain? Seems unlikely...but something's happening. Would love to hear opinions or facts on this one.

 

[icelanticskier]

lake champlain. similar "lake effect" as the great salt lake. i'm pretty sure of it.

rog

 

[Admin]

lake champlain. similar "lake effect" as the great salt lake. i'm pretty sure of it.

Nonsense. The fetch is simply too short for all but a NNNNNW wind. That wind direction accounts for the negligible number of lake effect events off Champlain in any given year.

 

[EMSC]

lake champlain. similar "lake effect" as the great salt lake. i'm pretty sure of it.

Nonsense. The fetch is simply too short for all but a NNNNNW wind. That wind direction accounts for the negligible number of lake effect events off Champlain in any given year.

Not to mention that most of champlain freezes over for the most part in a typical winter = no lake effect when frozen or even mostly frozen.

I believe that much of far N VT gets the snow from two other ways - some kind of 'lake effect' from the St Lawrence river (Jay peak for example), and that it's just far enough N to stay snow most of the time when coastal events come up the seaboard. Vt gets similar snow as adk if I recall for events coming from the W. I'm sure Jspin has all the details.

Tony, The western part of the adk's is rolling terrain at best in many places with a few scattered lumps/hills. Most of the hills that might be worth skiing are very remote from road access in winter. Not to mention the unusual super cooling in the valleys (Old Forge is well known for being frigid for example). I suppose it could be done though as that part of the adk's is HUGE for snowmobiling with gigantic trail networks and even some grooming of sled trails occurs. So if you're into skiing via sled you might find a hill or two to hit, though nothing with big vert... Unfortunately, in my experience, the sled heads in that area tend to drink heavily and stay up all night revving their engines and yelling at each other. Though it's also interesting to be the only car at the gas station with a dozen sleds in line for fuel.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

The fetch is simply too short for all but a NNNNNW wind. That wind direction accounts for the negligible number of lake effect events off Champlain in any given year.

Not to mention that most of champlain freezes over for the most part in a typical winter = no lake effect when frozen or even mostly frozen.

I agree, and I find it hard to believe that the St. Lawrence would provide much in the way of "lake effect" either. So what is the most popular explanation for the Jay Cloud? I don't want to read anything from Dr. Weather or whatever he's called.

 

[Patrick]

lake champlain. similar "lake effect" as the great salt lake. i'm pretty sure of it.

Nonsense. The fetch is simply too short for all but a NNNNNW wind. That wind direction accounts for the negligible number of lake effect events off Champlain in any given year.

Not to mention that most of champlain freezes over for the most part in a typical winter = no lake effect when frozen or even mostly frozen.

Not so sure plus I know that Lake Champlain stays unfroozen for a good part of the Winter in some year. The weather guru from MRG talks also about Lake Effect. I would defer to JSpin and Powderfreak expertize here.

 

[icelanticskier]

wind. That wind direction accounts for the negligible number of lake effect events off Champlain in any given year.

Not to mention that most of champlain freezes over for the most part in a typical winter = no lake effect when frozen or even mostly frozen.

Not so sure plus I know that Lake Champlain stays unfroozen for a good part of the Winter in some year. The weather guru from MRG talks also about Lake Effect. I would defer to JSpin and Powderfreak expertize here.

ya, so there! :stir:

rog

 

[rfarren]

Why has a real ski resort never been proposed for this region? I'm guessing the Adirondacks got locked up as wilderness some time ago.

In large part because the Daks is a "forever wild" region. I also don't think it would be all that feasible, that area is hard to get to from the north and east, although they might pick up quite a few people from Rochester, Syracuse, and perhaps even as far as Buffalo.

I'Still I never understood how the Greens can pull more snow out of it after it's passed over the Adks. Lake Champlain? Seems unlikely...but something's happening. Would love to hear opinions or facts on this one.

I believe that the lake effect that VT gets generally originates from lake huron and superior, not Ontario and Erie which NY gets. It also tends to come from systems from the NW. VT also gets more snow because VT picks up coastal systems, which often miss NY.

VT I think also has a topographical advantage. As an example : I think that Whiteface gets less snow than the Adirondak Loj, which is some 2000 lower. I think there's a micro-climate there where it will be snowing at the Loj but 1 mile down the road, it won't be snowing at all. I think there may be some topographical reason behind that. Whatever it is, it seems to suck moisture out of the air.

 

[Admin]

I steadfastly stand by my statement that the concept of lake effect from Champlain is nonsense. Any "lake effect" is usually restricted to a half mile from shore. I saw it many times while living in Burlington - I lived by the lakeshore and would get puked on, but by the time you got to Williston the ground would be bare. And no, Patrick, the lake seldom remains unfrozen throughout winter -- in most winters you can drive from VT to NY across the ice if you're careful about where you choose to go. The lake bed, however, is littered with the vehicles of those who weren't so careful. Even when the lake isn't fully frozen shore ice limits the open water fetch to 4 or 5 miles -- see comments on fetch, below.

The northern third of the Green Mountain spine is all about orographic lift. Stand on the summit of Jay Peak and look northwest. Whaddaya see? Nothin'. Alberta clipper systems cross that massive plain across western Quebec, Ontario, etc. and what's the first thing they hit? The far northern end of the Greens. That's why the Ullr's basin would always have noticeably more snow than anywhere else on the mountain. Mansfield and to a greater degree the Mad River Valley ridgeline are sheltered by the 'daks from the west, but nothing from the northwest, hence their slightly less but still greater than the rest of New England snowfall. North-central Vermont gets the added bonus of moisture from both coastal systems and clippers. Jay gets less from coastal systems, but wrings more from clipper systems than anyone.

The idea that the St. Lawrence somehow produces lake effect is even more ludicrous. For chrissakes, how much water do you think the wind has to cross, anyway? A cold, dry wind has to have a lengthy fetch across relatively warm water to pick up enough moisture to create a lake effect. That's why lake effect is more pronounced in early winter when the water is warmer (not to mention when the lake surface isn't yet frozen). We're talking 50, 100 miles at least here which is why the Great Lakes work. A northwesterly wind has about 130-140 miles of the Great Salt Lake to cross before hitting the Wasatch. Champlain at its widest point is 12 miles across. The St. Lawrence is maybe 2 miles at its widest point, and typically a mile or less until it widens east of Ile d'Orleans in the Charlevoix, save for Lac St.-Pierre west of Trois-Rivieres.

 

[J.Spin]

I'm sure Jspin has all the details.

I may not have all the details, but following our winter weather (and Powderfreak's discussions) closely has allowed me to get a good idea of what is going on. Most of what has been said here is on the right track, and Admin’s post is spot on in describing some of our best understanding of how the Northern Greens appear to capture so much snowfall. One clarification I’ll make to Admin’s post is with regard to Lake Champlain freezing over. I’d say the seasons are definitely in the minority in which the lake freezes over entirely (somehow I think I’ve heard a number like 1/3 of winters, but I’ll try to check on that). With that said, Lake Champlain is not all that big compared to the Great Lakes, and even if it doesn’t freeze over every year, it get’s pretty well covered with ice in a typical season.

With regard to the whole lake effect issue, I’ll try to clear up the confusion somewhat – it turns out that all these moisture sources that people have heard about (Lake Champlain, St. Lawrence Seaway, The Great Lakes) aren’t necessarily out of the picture for the Greens.

First off, I’ll point out that yes, you can get lake effect snow off Lake Champlain. I’ve been in it, I’ve watched it on radar, and I’ve seen the accumulations. However, as stated, the east-west fetch of Lake Champlain is far too small to really produce much lake effect. The only way you get lake effect off Lake Champlain is when you have winds in the N or NNW directions (as Admin said), then the fetch is long enough. Thus, this full blown lake effect off Champlain will only affect places to the S, SE, and right along the E shore of the lake. Middlebury got hit with lake effect off Champlain in November last year, and a good discussion developed on Easternuswx.com, led by some of the Middlebury guys reporting on it. Lake effect was also streaming off the Finger Lakes at the same time. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have a radar image of that episode in my web archives, but I should have captured one. We’ll have to see if Powderfreak has any images. The radar showed the beautiful streamers coming off Lake Champlain and the Finger Lakes, even the Weather Channel featured the radar as I recall. Check out that link to the discussion, and you can hear about some of the finer points of lake effect from some of the locals and experts. Powderfreak also posted the BTV NWS warning from that event.

So, what about the Green Mountains and actual lake effect from Champlain? The folks who have seen people talking about this are not crazy. With a NNW wind, the fetch off the lake can run right into the MRG/Sugarbush/App Gap region, and they get snow out of it. All these references you see in the lake effect warnings that mention Addison County - the MRG/Sugarbush/App Gap region is right along the east side of Addison County – you will see this region mentioned by NZucker in the discussion link above. We’re usually talking in the 6-inch range tops for the MRG/’bush area out of these types of events from what I’ve seen, but one could get a nice little surprise powder morning out of it.

So what about the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence? Well, occasionally you will see streamers from Lakes Ontario/Erie spread all the way across and hit the Greens, but that’s a LONG way for lake effect snow, and the results are usually a few inches in the Killington area, but not so much “directly” in the Northern Greens from what I’ve seen, so that doesn’t explain it. As admin said, the distance from the Great Lakes to the Greens is just too far for major lake effect. However, the lakes may play an important role in our snowfall, and this is where the St. Lawrence may come in as well (what people have heard about the St. Lawrence affecting out snowfall may not be out of this world either). It seems like the area north of the Adirondacks, north/northeast of the Great Lakes, west/on of the St. Lawrence, and northwest of Lake Champlain is an area that has the ability to pool moisture (with the potential for all these moisture sources to contribute – even the tiny ones a little bit). I only know about this region because Powderfreak speaks about it, but with the right wind, this pool of moisture smashes into the wall of the Northern Greens, and with the orographic effect that Admin specifically talked about in his post (which nicely explains the gradient one sees from Jay Peak southward) lots of snow falls. Sometimes moisture wraps all the way around from the Atlantic with storms up to our northeast, and that contributes to this pool as well. So, for the very small moisture sources like the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, perhaps they are not contributing like the Atlantic or the Great Lakes, but they’re not going to hurt, and they may be doing their tiny fractional part in the overall effect (as long as they are not frozen). Any moisture source is going to help a little to keep the atmosphere saturated, so that may be part of what people are hearing about effects from these smaller bodies of water. I’ll try to get Powderfreak in here for his expert input, because he is certainly one, if not THE world’s expert on this specific phenomenon for the Northern Greens due to his meteorological knowledge and observations from the area.

J.Spin

 

[Harvey]

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Look at Admin's Wx steeze!

 

[Patrick]

I steadfastly stand by my statement that the concept of lake effect from Champlain is nonsense. Any "lake effect" is usually restricted to a half mile from shore. I saw it many times while living in Burlington - I lived by the lakeshore and would get puked on, but by the time you got to Williston the ground would be bare. And no, Patrick, the lake seldom remains unfrozen throughout winter.

Like I said earlier, far from an expert on Lake effect snow and other weather related stuff in VT, but in the great Eastern snow year of 2007, Lake Champlain remained unfrozen from a good part of the Winter. Heard it a few times the last few years. You were at Jay during the Ice Age (meaning cold as you wouldn't believe) years around 1994, correct? Global Warming, dude. :stir: However you've never looked back, so you can be excused.

This geographer is proud of you for the following analysis.

The northern third of the Green Mountain spine is all about orographic lift. Stand on the summit of Jay Peak and look northwest. Whaddaya see? Nothin'.

Well, maybe not nothing. If you know where to look and it's clear, you can see the greatest city in North America with it's buildings (I didn't necessarily say it was the greatest, but I don't disagree).

Alberta clipper systems cross that massive plain across western Quebec, Ontario, etc. and what's the first thing they hit? The far northern end of the Greens. That's why the Ullr's basin would always have noticeably more snow than anywhere else on the mountain. Mansfield and to a greater degree the Mad River Valley ridgeline are sheltered by the 'daks from the west, but nothing from the northwest, hence their slightly less but still greater than the rest of New England snowfall. North-central Vermont gets the added bonus of moisture from both coastal systems and clippers. Jay gets less from coastal systems, but wrings more from clipper systems than anyone.

The idea that the St. Lawrence somehow produces lake effect is even more ludicrous. For chrissakes, how much water do you think the wind has to cross, anyway? A cold, dry wind has to have a lengthy fetch across relatively warm water to pick up enough moisture to create a lake effect. That's why lake effect is more pronounced in early winter when the water is warmer (not to mention when the lake surface isn't yet frozen). We're talking 50, 100 miles at least here which is why the Great Lakes work. A northwesterly wind has about 130-140 miles of the Great Salt Lake to cross before hitting the Wasatch. Champlain at its widest point is 12 miles across. The St. Lawrence is maybe 2 miles at its widest point, and typically a mile or less until it widens east of Ile d'Orleans in the Charlevoix, save for Lac St.-Pierre west of Trois-Rivieres.

The geographer isn't too proud of the following statement.

Why has a real ski resort never been proposed for this region? I'm guessing the Adirondacks got locked up as wilderness some time ago.

[/quote]

Market, location and access (snow and mountain size is almost irrelevant). It's all about location. Why is there something like 30 ski areas between 30-50 miles North of Montreal or 4 ski areas within 30 miles from Ottawa? No real hills there. Some of it is historic, but historic is tied into access and location. Mont Ste-Anne didn't start until 1966 and Le Massif started using school bus around 1983. Quebec City already had a few ski areas dating to the 30s, but just outside the (current) city limits.

Whiteface has the greatest vertical (KMart vert doesn't really compare regardless of the number), however how many skier visits? Not much. Any other mountains in the Daks would have even greater challenge.

 

[powderfreak]

Some great posts in here by J.Spin and Admin. I endorse anything they've said so far. Ok, so why do the Northern Greens get the most snow in the northeast? While growing up in Albany I'd hear about all the snow falling up in the Jay-Sugarbush corridor and would write it off to them being further north. Little did I know when I got my first Gore/Whiteface seasons pass that 200" is a good winter in the 'Dacks. In the 5-6 winters I've skied up here, I can remember only one at Stowe being less than 300". While I loved skiing in the Adirondacks, southern Vermont, and Berkshires while growing up, all it took was one family vacation to Jay Peak to realize that something was much, much different in Northern VT. The first night I was at Jay Peak as a high schooler, a small clipper was affecting the region and we had only seen the usual 2-4" clipper snows on the drive up but by the time we pulled into Jay it was 1-2"/hr with 10" already on the ground with big, fluffy flakes pouring down. What?!? Little did I know at the time, but I was witnessing my first upslope enhanced event! I ended up going to UVM purely based on the snowfall of N.VT (snowfall in nearby mountains was one of my top college criteria) and have since learned a lot about the processes at work around this parts.

For snowfall totals, consider this...last year Stowe recorded 349" and Smugglers Notch Resort recorded 352" (which is amazing consistency between two independently measured, but adjacent mountains), Jay Peak was ~375", and I'm sure J.Spin has the Bolton number which is escaping me right now but certainly 300+. Then there's Sugarbush and MRG area which gets a little less orographic snow on average thanks to more shadowing from the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks (ie. 247" at MRG and 287" Sugarbush last year compared with well over 300" north of I89). Its hard to say this without trying to illustrate it, but geography could not have blessed the northern VT areas any better... something important happens to the Green Mountain spine after it crosses the I-89 corridor/Winooski Valley, and while we usually talk about it being a north-south spine, it actually curls decently to the northeast.

For a visual, go to the North Country meso-net temperature map below. Disregard the temperatures but look at the relief on the map. Each color change represents 1,000ft of elevation. Now look at the orientation of the Northern Green Mountain Spine between Jay Peak and the Mansfield area...now look west and northwest of that area (its very flat).
http://weirsonline.com/mesomap
For the best upslope snow you want a wind flow perpendicular to the terrain. Thus, the best flow is a NW flow into the northern Greens which due to the subtle bend in the spine to the NE can create a perpendicular intersection of wind/terrain. Further south, areas like MRG and Sugarbush do get a lot of snow for the East Coast (250+" is nothing to sneeze at) but wind hitting them does need to interact with the Adirondacks to some extent... with that said, they still feature 3-4K feet of pure vertical relief out of the flat Champlain Valley and that's all it takes to create snow producing clouds.

Now, regarding lake effect off Lake Champlain. This is vastly over-stated and pure lake effect happens only a couple times a year (usually in Dec/Jan) and only right on the lake shore. The largest lake effect event recorded was 12" in Cornwall in Addison County and if anyone knows the area, its very, very flat out there in the agricultural land of Addison County. You need a wind out of the due north and this can produce --Sn/-Sn in downtown Burlington and along the waterfront with a very narrow band of SN/+SN down in the Ferrisburgh and points south area. For lake effect to occur the "fetch" needs to be quite significant (100km is often stated as a pre-requisite) as you need to maximize the "parcel residence time." Coming across Lake Champlain a parcel of air does not have enough time to pick up enough moisture to produce snow on its own, so for pure lake effect snow off Champlain a parcel of air needs to start up near the Islands and work its way down the length of the lake usually depositing snow into western Addison County.

With all that said, is there "lake enhancement" going on in the northern Greens? Yes, though I dislike even using the phrase lake enhancement because too many people immediately just say the snowfall is caused by the lake. Parcels of air traveling across Lake Champlain do pick up moisture though its just not enough to produce snow on its own. But when that parcel moves across Burlington and Chittenden County its slowly rising and finally, its forced up and over the 4,000ft Mansfield ridge line which then produces snow. This is often how MRG/SB get big snows that are lake enhanced...their topography is perfect for getting a decent fetch over the lake to add moisture to the air which then gets wrung out as it crosses the high terrain. But remember, without the orographic component none of this snow would fall... it is not lake effect but upslope aided by lake moisture.

So in summary, the #1 factor in Northern VT is forced ascent of the parcel by means of orographic lift. The Adirondacks get some orographics on the northern and western sides, and the northern Whites can get good orographic assist, but no ski areas are situated as perfectly as they are across N VT to reap the benefits of this thanks to the flat lands of the Champlain and St Lawrence Valleys surrounding the Greens on the west and north. These larger valleys also just have more low level moisture available thanks to moisture/dewpoint pooling in the low elevations. On the whole, lower elevations have a more moist surface profile and with decent sized bodies of water in both of these valleys, there is added moisture that just "pools" in the Champlain and St Lawrence Valleys. This low level moisture is then pushed by NW surface winds into the hills and you get snow. This isn't moisture that you or I can see or tell is there...but when talking meteorological processes, sometimes that added degree of surface dewpoint in the the larger valleys can make a big difference in low level orographics.

I didn't plan on writing that much and sorry if its wordy...haha, I can get carried away. I should preface all this by saying the past two winters have been La Ninas which are northern stream dominate and therefore are going to favor the northern mountains anyway. It means more clipper systems, more NW flow, and faster wind speeds across the northern tier and that means a lot of upslope. This has created a situation where areas further south that rely on more synoptic means of snowfall (nor'easters/coastals) have gotten sort of skunked while the upslope regions continue at 300+ inches per year. This upcoming season will be a weak El Nino most likely and that means a more active southern jet stream that south spread the snowfall more evenly and give us a heck of a lot more chances of a good east coast crawler. I actually have a feeling the snowfall anomalies this season will be situated further south down in the Pocono/Catskill/Berkshire/SVT region as opposed to the last two seasons where the better snowfall relative to average has been situated across the northern tier. So folks down that way, this may be your winter if we can get an active southern jet going.

-Scott

 

[Patrick]

Thank you Scott. =D>

 

[rfarren]

I actually have a feeling the snowfall anomalies this season will be situated further south down in the Pocono/Catskill/Berkshire/SVT region as opposed to the last two seasons where the better snowfall relative to average has been situated across the northern tier. So folks down that way, this may be your winter if we can get an active southern jet going.

The one caveat to that is if it's cold enough. It seems to me a bunch of the coastal storms have been carrying the wrong type of moisture. I think somewhere north of Albany is where the snow line was consistently last winter.

 

[Harvey]

....-Scott

Boy I miss Scott around here. Thank you Powderfreak.

It's beautiful up here tonight. Leaves starting to turn and a frost warning. CB and I spent the ride up talking about moving. One thing's for sure..if I lived within 10 or 20 miles of Albany International...some aspects of business travel would be easier. There's a sales job to be done...

 

[J.Spin]

It's beautiful up here tonight. Leaves starting to turn and a frost warning.

This is certainly the most that the BTV NWS map has been lit up this season with regard to frost/freeze warnings around the north country. They're calling for some spots to get into the lower 20s F, and based on where we are for temperature right now at the house, I suspect we'll beat our coldest reading of the fall season thus far.

J.Spin

 

[Tony Crocker]

Many thanks to JSpin and Scott for their informative posts. =D> =D>

For the best upslope snow you want a wind flow perpendicular to the terrain......So in summary, the #1 factor in Northern VT is forced ascent of the parcel by means of orographic lift.

This is how it works out here too. Sierra, Tetons, Wasatch have that wind flow perpendicular to the terrain. Larry Schick once mentioned that 7,000 feet of orographic uplift tends to produce max precipitation. Like SLC vs. Hidden Peak and Baldy at AltaBird. Notice from this map of Colorado http://www.classbrain.com/artstate/publ ... _map.shtml how the white areas over 10,000 feet are not in simple north/south lines like in the other examples. So you don't get the straightforward wind flow perpendicular to the terrain in most places, just a few isolated microclimates that trap more storms while most of the high country gets ~250 inches or so.

On the whole, lower elevations have a more moist surface profile and with decent sized bodies of water in both of these valleys, there is added moisture that just "pools" in the Champlain and St Lawrence Valleys. This low level moisture is then pushed by NW surface winds into the hills and you get snow. This isn't moisture that you or I can see or tell is there...but when talking meteorological processes, sometimes that added degree of surface dewpoint in the the larger valleys can make a big difference in low level orographics.

This is credible to me. I complain about summer humidity in the East, but the humidity is pervasive in cold weather too. I was astounded by the thick ice I had to scrape off a car in NH from just overnight condensation. So sure, whether there's an actual open body of water or not, I can believe the general humidity of the eastern climate would produce significant precipitation with some decent orographic uplift.

Which brings up a question. Shouldn't the Appalachians (5K at Snowshoe and 6K in North Carolina) get some good orographic uplift snow with all that flat humid expanse upwind? Snowshoe averages 156 inches, similar to many NH ski areas or Gore/Whiteface, but far below Vermont.

I should preface all this by saying the past two winters have been La Ninas which are northern stream dominate and therefore are going to favor the northern mountains anyway.

El Nino/La Nina is not relevant to most eastern ski areas, but the favored Northern Vermont trio of Jay/Smuggs/Stowe are favored mildly by La Nina.

Just a note: I have 309 for Jay last year. Part of that is my averaging of upper and lower reported snow to be consistent with the long term history. But Jay actually reported zero for March last season and only 9.5 inches in April. I asked them to double check that and they confirmed. Also 238 at the Mansfield Stake, but we know about the conservative methodology there (measure once a day at 4PM).

 

[J.Spin]

For snowfall totals, consider this...last year Stowe recorded 349" and Smugglers Notch Resort recorded 352" (which is amazing consistency between two independently measured, but adjacent mountains), Jay Peak was ~375", and I'm sure J.Spin has the Bolton number which is escaping me right now but certainly 300+.

Bolton Valley reported 318 inches of snow through April 5th of last season, so that’s actually pretty close to the 312-inch seasonal snowfall average that they’re using. Bolton generally closes off their snowfall recording earlier than Stowe, Jay, etc. as I mentioned in a post in the Industry Outlook thread, but this April wasn’t too crazy in terms of snowfall; based on my post-closing trips up to the mountain on April 8th and April 9th, I’d say the mountain picked up an additional 6 to 8 inches in the summit area, putting Bolton at ~325 inches for the season using a similar timeframe to the rest of the Northern Vermont group.

Scott, thanks for adding your comments to this thread. I’m sure you’ve mentioned it before, but I hadn’t really thought too much about the way the Northern Greens start to bend away from the lake north of the Winooski Valley. I can really see how that helps to minimize shadowing from the west when the wind is appropriately positioned in upslope events. I can’t wait for the first event of the season!

-J