Patrick's Eastern Closing Thread

Tony Crocker said:
Based on that Vermont chart there are not a lot of seasons where I’d be interested in skiing more than 5 days in the Northeast before January.
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I can't recall the last time we've had a good Xmas break for skiing in the northeast. @Harvey would be in a better position to remember. I have to go back to Dec 26, 2003 at Greek Peak when I had a noteworthy powder day during that time frame.
 
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It was a Christmas family tradition to go on the 26th and ski every day for 8 or 9 days. Sometimes it was good, sometimes not. With a teenager we aren't going to a 12x18 cabin for a week when the skiing sucks.

Also I used think, I was getting in shape for when the snow came. There is some truth to that, but I don't need that much wrod to do it.
 
Indexing to Killington (52 complete months of snowfall 76% correlated), I have Gore at 147 inches Nov-Apr average. That's not much over SoCal's 126 inch average.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
Harv does make a point about how we're comparing apples and bowling balls in that base-killing gully washers in the northeast are a variable that doesn't really exist out west (or to a far lesser extent). You've heard my anecdote about being at Snowbird in late January 2003 during a major rain event; however, the liquid precip didn't wash away the big base; it just turned everything to ice -- then they got a foot of snow the next evening which covered it up.
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Rain at Snowbird in January. I would have thought that impossible. There you go - my lesson for the day.
 
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Sbooker said:
Rain at Snowbird in January. I would have thought impossible. There you go - my lesson for the day.
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Rare does not mean impossible. I've seen rain at Snowbird's base a couple of times but not more than maybe 500 feet up the mountain. I would be somewhat surprised if it rained very high in January 2003 because it takes an extreme and generally widespread event like the one in early April 2018 to do that.

2003 was the driest January on record at the time for Alta Collins so the unusually poor surface conditions attracted much notice. That record was tied in 2015 and closely approached this year.

In the Pacific States where rain in the mountains is not rare, the lowest incidence of rain is in February/March, due to weather patterns in the Pacific and perhaps ocean temperatures. I would expect that to be true also for the warmest and strongest atmospheric rivers that push father inland. In the Northeast rain incidence is as most people wouild expect, lowest in the coldest months Dec-Feb and very high during shoulder seasons.
 
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Tony Crocker said:
Rare does not mean impossible. I've seen rain at Snowbird's base a couple of times but not more than maybe 500 feet up the mountain. I would be somewhat surprised if it rained very high in January 2003 because it takes an extreme and generally widespread event like the one in early April 2018 to do that.

2003 was the driest January on record at the time for Alta Collins so the unusually poor surface conditions attracted much notice. That record was tied in 2015 and closely approached this year.

In the Pacific States where rain in the mountains is not rare, the lowest incidence of rain is in February/March. I would expect that to be true also for the warmest and strongest atmospheric rivers that push father inland.
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Any stats on which area historically has seen the least amount of rain during winter months? I would expect the i70 hills in Colorado.
 
Tony, Gore got a foot overnight. Not reopening until Saturday, could easily be gone by then. In your system do you count it?

I will.
 
Tony Crocker said:
I've seen rain at Snowbird's base a couple of times but not more than maybe 500 feet up the mountain. I would be somewhat surprised if it rained very high in January 2003 because it takes an extreme and generally widespread event like the one in early April 2018 to do that.
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The January 2003 event absolutely went to the top of Snowbird and yes, it's very rare. @Sbooker, you haven't been here long enough to have heard my oft-told war story from that trip but I detoured to my preferred SLC ski area Snowbasin (which received 15cm after the rain/freeze), where I skied into an ice shelf while traversing, fell directly forward, and my rear binding didn't release = broken tibia.
 
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I’m only using Dec -Mar Gore data, 52 months comparing to same months at Killington, then apply that ratio to Killington Nov-Apr average which is based on 50+ years, a very good data set.

I’m not using Gore months outside of Dec-Mar because I don’t know if they are complete, very likely not for days the ski area is not open. Does Harvey know at what elevation Gore snow is measured?

Why Killington for the indexing?
1) Very complete and long term data set
2) 76% correlation with Gore, latitudes are similar.
3) There is no southern Vermont area with complete Nov-Apr data. Those areas are indexed to Killington too.
 
I have 3,660 for Whiteface, probably got that way back in 1994 when I was adding Northeast areas in preparation for the Powder magazine article.

Whiteface 171 inches vs. Gore 147 inches is mostly explained by that elevation difference I'd suspect. Do regular NY skiers think snowfall is similar?
 
Whiteface gets more snow, elevation and latitude and also lake effect.

But those 200s they put up ...?

Using the theory that you have to be able to ski the snow by riding a lift... haha not going there.
 
Sbooker said:
Any stats on which area historically has seen the least amount of rain during winter months? I would expect the i70 hills in Colorado.
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Rain remains rare essentially at any ski area in Colorado plus other high altitude places like the Cottonwood Canyons, northern Arizona and New Mexico, Mammoth, Targhee, Big Sky and the cold areas in Alberta: Banff, Lake Louise and Marmot.

Again rare doesn't mean never. I saw rain to 10,000 feet in Aspen in March 2004. There had been a sustained dry spell with daytime temps about 17C. When the next storm ran into that much warm air the rain/snow line stayed high for awhile.

Here is Fraser's take on avoiding rain in the Alps. I find it interesting that he quotes 2,700 meters as an extreme rain altitude. That's 8,856 feet, which is a number where I'd say the same thing in North America.
 
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Harvey said:
Using the theory that you have to be able to ski the snow by riding a lift... haha not going there.
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Not sure what you mean by that. Chronic wind holds? I know you have the opposite view, but Patrick and Liz like Whiteface quite a lot.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
The January 2003 event absolutely went to the top of Snowbird and yes, it's very rare. @Sbooker, you haven't been here long enough to have heard my oft-told war story from that trip but I detoured to my preferred SLC ski area Snowbasin (which received 15cm after the rain/freeze), where I skied into an ice shelf while traversing, fell directly forward, and my rear binding didn't release = broken tibia.
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Ouch. @jamesdeluxe was there any reluctance to ski the next season?
 
Sbooker said:
Ouch. @jamesdeluxe was there any reluctance to ski the next season?
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None whatsoever. I broke my femur at The Canyons in April 2002 and was skiing eight months later, then broke my tibia at the end of January. The tibia took far longer to heal but I was back on the snow the following December. No injuries since then!
 
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