Vermont Snow Updates 2008-09

[icelanticskier]

i'll get to see if sunday river is offering up "hardpack" or fake powder tomorrow. 9 trails with 3 different ones top to bottom. i figure it may finally be worth a look. looking forward to celebrating my mentor dick labonte's or "lift line" lebonte 1st day on snow as a retiree. after 40+ 100 day ski seasons, he can now ski even more. snowin? we're goin! he's my mentor and i'm his tormentor. looking forward to ridin my snowboard on my 1st day out, bringin the beat back.
rog

 

[Harvey]

ridin my snowboard

Say it aint so Rog.

 

[icelanticskier]

ridin my snowboard

Say it aint so Rog.

oh, it's so very so. if there's one piece of sporting equipment that's an extension of my soul, it's a snowboard. i've been ridin a board more than twice as long as i've been skiing (23 years now). not many folks even know that i ride and after keeping my burton tucked away for 3 seasons while i taught myself how to alpine ski, it's time to rip the crap out of the hill again. i told dickie i was gonna be on the board today and he says, "whose gonna keep up with ya on that thing?" that's right-i'm pumped! i really hope they didn't groom anything and it's all big snowmaking whales all over the place. snowboarding is always a great ride after a bunch of surfing.
cheers to another season :mrgreen:
rog

 

[Harvey]

Unless Icelantic gets into the board biz you'll need an alias for your boardin TRs, BurtonBoy.

Maybe you could be shredgar.

 

[BigJay]

Is there some form of "board-hating" overhere that i never noticed?

Rog: Do you ride for real? It would make sense... If you love surfing so much... After surfing the waves there is nothing better then surfing the woods!

Don't worry, i'm not saying skiing sucks... I ski a couple times a year... I'm actually looking for a pair of touring skis... mid-fats w/ AT bindings... But i don't know how much i would use them... the splitboard is still my weapon of choice... but sometimes i'd like to get out and tour more... descending on the split isn't the easiest thing... so skis would make sense... kind of like "fun-oriented" XC-skiing!
:sabre fight:

 

[Patrick]

Rog: Do you ride for real? It would make sense... If you love surfing so much... After surfing the waves there is nothing better then surfing the woods!

Rog does it all. Hiking, skiing, tele, board, surf, bike and FTO poet. Hike the rockpile at sunrise, skis and rides down to his bike at Pinkham then to the beach for some surfing before sunset. East or West, he calls it like it is. :mrgreen: =D>

I want to be like you when I get old and have a nice girl too. :wink:

Love you Rog.

 

[Harvey]

Is there some form of "board-hating" overhere that i never noticed?

Jay...I started it. I'd an old stupid telemarker habit. No real hate there. You catch it over at TTips.

I do it now since the red sox are no longer hapless. Nobody to pick on I guess. I'll try to focus on the cubs instead.

8)

 

[Tony Crocker]

Since we're picking on the Cubs...

What kind of odds would you have gotten in 1908 that a black dude would be elected President before the Cubs won another World Series?

 

[J.Spin]

I was out for an event at Ty’s school in Morrisville today, so on the way home we stopped in for some skiing on Mt. Mansfield. Valley temperatures were in the mid 20s F and there was persistent light snowfall in many areas, but I didn’t see any snow accumulating down low. The Morrisville area had a decent ½-1 inch coating of snow from previous snowfall, but most other valley areas were patchier in their coverage. Even up to around the Stowe Toll House area (~1,300’) the coverage isn’t all that consistent, but up at the Mansfield Base itself there’s a more solid 1 to 2 inches around. The current clipper system is really off to our south, and it’s also rather weak and supposedly getting weaker, but it was certainly snowing on Mt. Mansfield. Ty and I walked through several inches of fresh powder on the left side of the Mansfield Base Lodge where it had collected out of the wind, and that felt really nice. The mountain was blowing snow on North Slope, so we hiked up Lower Lord instead. I was actually quite impressed with the snow depths there, as I was getting readings in the 3-inch range right from the bottom of the run. I think the depth there was being helped out a bit by blow over from the guns on North Slope however, as once we reached Crossover and headed away from the guns the snow depth was back to an inch or two. We continued up Tyro, then Duck Walk, and finally part of the way up T-Line before Ty decided we’d gone high enough. We skied some natural snow on T-Line, which had accumulated a few inches, and then down through the snow guns on North Slope. I’m not a fan of skiing in guns because of the noise and the way your equipment can get coated with ice, but there just wasn’t enough natural snow to trust any of the other terrain without rock skis. Riding the snow whales on North Slope was fun, and the snow generally had that thick man-made feel, but the top inch was loose and carveable. Perhaps the cold temperatures were giving it a reasonable consistency. It was about 20 F in the parking lot, and a couple degrees cooler where we topped out about 1,000’ feet up. I was surprised that less than an inch of new snow was reported at the stake with this evening’s measurement, since we’d picked up a few tenths of an inch on our car in the parking lot when we left around 3:00 P.M., and it was coming down in a steady and moderate wat. But, different areas of the mountain seemed to be getting hit with varying intensities of snowfall. There was a snow cloud stuck in the notch and over near the Gondola area, which looked like it was feeding snow over to the Main Mansfield parking lot, while there were occasional glimpses of blue sky south of The Nose. I just looked at the local radar and there’s a northwest flow with what looks like some upslope snowfall, and we’ve even got flurries here in Waterbury, so some spots may pick up a bit of snow tonight. A few pictures from today are below:

J.Spin

 

[icelanticskier]

Is there some form of "board-hating" overhere that i never noticed?

Rog: Do you ride for real? It would make sense... If you love surfing so much... After surfing the waves there is nothing better then surfing the woods!

yup, started riding the golf courses of cape cod in 85' as a 12 year old skateboarder soon to be surfer. sponsored racer from 88-93, trained at mt hood in the summer with the old pros, rode for gnu, rossi, sims as part of a developement snowboard team based out of loon in the later 80's early 90's. raced slalom, gs, super g and halfpipe. imho the best day of pow snowboarding doesn't touch a good day of surfing in terms of dynamicness and free movement and flow, although snowboarding is way better than skiing on a good pow day. i do like the ease and independent suspension and versatility of skiing more than snowboarding on a whole. i'll continue to board on the best of lift served refill pow days. today i had no choice as i i didn't pick up my skis till late in the day, but the hero snow at the rivah provided a good ride under the guns.

rog

 

[J.Spin]

It's been a busy day so I haven't had time to get my weather updates sent off, but things are looking really good out here in Waterbury right now. We've currently got 1"/hour snowfall coming down, and maybe some additional upslope snow for tomorrow based on Scott Braaten's thoughts. More details below:


Friday, November 21st, 2008: 6:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT

New Snow: 1.0 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.01 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 100
Snow Density: 1.0%
Temperature: 21.2 F
Humidity: 77%
Dew Point: 12.9 F
Barometer: 30.00 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light Snow
Storm snow total: 1.0 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.01 inches
Current snow at the stake: Trace
Season snowfall total: 3.3 inches

I woke up to find an inch of fluffy snow on the snowboard this morning (it came in as only 1% H2O based on the liquid I was able to obtain from it, although that number is probably off due to the small sample). Snowfall was also continuing in the form of big flakes in the 1 cm + diameter range. I’d suspected we might pick up something based on the way it was snowing when we were at Mt. Mansfield yesterday and the look of the local radar last night. It was snowing lightly but consistently all the way from Waterbury to Richmond this morning, and all those areas had a decent coating of snow up to perhaps an inch. In Burlington this morning there’s no new snow and the sky is actually partly clear, but I can see snowfall backed up against the mountains. There are still a couple of streamers visible on the radar this morning (see image below), which may be getting some enhancement from Lake Champlain. I think our house was getting snow from the band to the north of the more intense one with yellow echoes. I saw that more intense band as well last night and wonder if someone in the Camel’s Hump area got a more substantial accumulation from it.

Friday, November 21st, 2008: 7:00 P.M. update from Waterbury, VT

New Snow: 0.6 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.02 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 30
Snow Density: 3.3%
Temperature: 21.2 F
Humidity: 75%
Dew Point: 12.2 F
Barometer: 30.24 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Light Snow
Storm snow total: 1.6 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.03 inches
Current snow at the stake: <1 inch
Season snowfall total: 3.9 inches

In Burlington today we had little more than flurries, but the mountains were hidden the entire time by a wall of snow, and the radar had that upslope look. Arriving back in Waterbury, there was a bit of new accumulation on my car, and 0.6 inches on the snowboard at 7:00 P.M. As of 10:00 P.M., there’s already another 1.8 inches of snow on the snowboard. We’ve picked up an inch in the past hour, so the pace of snowfall certainly seems to have picked up in our area. Hopefully the mountains are doing well. Below I’ve added the latest 24-hour accumulations that I’ve seen reported by the local ski areas.

Jay Peak: 4 inches (9:30 P.M.)
Smugg’s: 6 inches (11:57 A.M.)
Stowe: 2 inches (12:00 P.M.)
Mad River Glen: 6 inches (8:00 A.M.)
Sugarbush: 5 inches (2:29 P.M.)
Killington: 3 inches

A shot of this evening’s radar is included below; the echoes don’t look all that intense, but we’ve got big flakes coming down in the form of 1 inch/hour snowfall right now.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

We've passed a foot of accumulation for this event down here in Waterbury (495'), with much of it coming overnight. As of ~8:00 A.M. the snowfall rate has slowed down here to about 0.5 inches/hour, but it's still snowing. Some of the local ski areas have reported in with their snowfall this morning, here are the 24-hour accumulations I've seen:

Jay Peak: 4 inches (5:30 A.M.)
Stowe: 10 inches (6:15 A.M.)
Mad River Glen: 6 inches (8:00 A.M.)
Sugarbush: 8 inches (7:41 A.M.)
Killington: 3 inches

My back yard observations and a couple of pictures from this morning are below:


Saturday, November 22nd, 2008: 1:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT

New Snow: 3.6 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.06 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 60
Snow Density: 1.7%
Temperature: 19.9 F
Humidity: 80%
Dew Point: 12.7 F
Barometer: 30.21 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Snow
Storm snow total: 5.2 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.09 inches
Current snow at the stake: 5 inches
Season snowfall total: 7.5 inches

After clearing the snowboard at 7:00 P.M., 0.8 inches had accumulated by 10:00 P.M., 1.8 inches had accumulated by 11:00 P.M., and 3.6 inches had accumulated by 1:00 P.M., so we’ve been running just shy of an inch per hour for the last three hours.

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008: 7:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT

New Snow: 6.0 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.15 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 40
Snow Density: 2.5%
Temperature: 18.1 F
Humidity: 85%
Dew Point: 12.7 F
Barometer: 30.24 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Snow
Storm snow total: 11.2 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.24 inches
Current snow at the stake: 8 inches
Season snowfall total: 13.5 inches

The power of the Green Mountains hadn’t really descended on our house so far this season, but that changed overnight last night starting at around 10:00 P.M. We picked up 2.8 inches of snow between 10:00 P.M. and 1:00 A.M. putting the snowfall rate at ~0.93 inches/hour, and the between 1:00 A.M. and 7:00 A.M. we picked up 6.0 inches of snow for a rate that was spot on at 1.0 inches/hour. It’s extremely fluffy 40:1 stuff, and I’m more confident in this density measurement than the more minimal accumulations since there were six inches to work with and I took two cores.

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Here are some snow updates and pictures from our area during the past 24 hours or so. At our house in Waterbury, we’ve received a total of 14.2 inches of snow from the recent upslope event, although as my density calculations have suggested it’s incredibly light stuff and is settling fast. As of this morning there were only 7 inches at our stake. More details and some pictures below:

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008: 3:00 P.M. update from Waterbury, VT

New Snow: 1.8 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.07 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 25.7
Snow Density: 3.9%
Temperature: 21.6 F
Humidity: 62%
Dew Point: 7.9 F
Barometer: 30.24 in. Hg
Wind: Calm
Sky: Partly Clear/Flurries
Storm snow total: 13.0 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.31 inches
Current snow at the stake: 9 inches
Season snowfall total: 15.3 inches

The snowfall rate really slowed down today by mid morning and eventually tapered to some blue sky in the afternoon, but not before we’d reached 13.0 inches of accumulation for the event. That seems like quite a decent total for not even having a storm around, and it’s also the largest November event I’ve recorded since 2006 when we moved to Waterbury. After lunch, Ty and I headed up to check out the scene at Bolton Valley and make some turns. The temperature was around 20 F in the valley (~300’) and 14 F in the upper village parking lot (~2,100’) in the early afternoon, but it was actually quite comfortable because we didn’t have to deal with any significant wind at that point. There had been some drifting going on, and right when we started skinning from the parking lot I stuck my pole in a drift that was up to the top of my handle. It was interesting, but even the drifts were composed of rather light snow, and you could walk through some of them like they weren’t even there. So, I’m guessing that the wind wasn’t too strong during much of the snowfall. Ty and I skinned up the Sprig O’ Pine area, and I was getting consistent measurements of between 14 and 15 inches of unconsolidated snow up to the top of the Snowflake Lift (~2,400’). There was essentially no base snow below the new powder where snowmaking hadn’t been done, so I don’t know how much of the 14 to 15 inches was new, but I’d guess most of it. I’ve heard there is more snow on the upper mountain, but we didn’t head up that high. Although they were making some snow on the lower mountain, many areas hadn’t seen any snowmaking. Rock skis would be highly recommended despite all the snowfall. A foot or two of upslope snow is good, but when there’s no base you can just sink right down through the fluff and hit a lot of stuff.

In the evening we headed into Burlington, and the distribution of the snow was consistent with what often happens during upslope events; the snow amounts gradually tapered down as we headed westward until there was little if any accumulation in Burlington itself. It was a pretty striking difference to go from all that new snow to bare ground so quickly. When we got back from Burlington on Saturday evening around 9:00 P.M. the sky was partly clear and I thought the snowfall would be over, but I woke up to find another 1.2 inches on the board this morning so I collected additional weather data:

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008: 7:00 A.M. update from Waterbury, VT

New Snow: 1.2 inches
Liquid Equivalent: 0.02 inches
Snow/Water Ratio: 60.0
Snow Density: 1.7%
Temperature: 14.2 F
Humidity: 70%
Dew Point: 3.4 F
Barometer: 30.33 in. Hg
Wind: ~5 MPH
Sky: Mostly Clear
Storm snow total: 14.2 inches
Storm liquid equivalent total: 0.33 inches
Current snow at the stake: 7 inches
Season snowfall total: 16.5 inches

J.Spin

 

[J.Spin]

Ty and I didn't get up toward the summit elevations this weekend to check on the deeper snow, but Peter Wadsworth was up there and sent in a nice slide show of the conditions to SkiVT-L. Based on his shots I'd say there's a good two to three feet of upslope Champlain Powder in some of the higher elevations, and the skiing looked fantastic on both Saturday and Sunday. It probably wasn't quite snorkel deep, but in some of the Saturday shots it looked close. Our weather has remained cold so the powder in the higher elevations should still be nice right through tomorrow for those that want some, although it probably will have settled some more. It looks like freezing levels may go way up on Tuesday, but they should come back down Tuesday night so if you didn't get out for this stretch by Monday, the latter part of next week is probably a better bet for powder.

J.Spin

 

[Tony Crocker]

I suppose JSpin is sworn to secrecy on the location of that slide show.

 

[J.Spin]

I suppose JSpin is sworn to secrecy on the location of that slide show.

He He, no, Peter just didn't specify in his SkiVT-L message. I'm not into the whole secrecy game the way some people are, but since I suspect he was skiing on Mt. Ellen at Sugarbush, even I would have gone with a "Don't ask, don't tell." sort of approach with that report. Unfortunately, unlike most (or perhaps all) of the rest of the ski areas in Northern Vermont, the current Sugarbush policy is to not allow hiking/skinning for turns. It's been a big topic of debate on SkiVT-L as various people have been turned away by ski patrol etc.

Some SkiVT-L threads on this:

The legality of skinning at SB?

Sugarbush Monday Dec 17

VT Cat Skiing

I believe the issue has been discussed over at the Sugarbush Message Board forum as well, although I didn't have time to find the specific threads.

-J

 

[Patrick]

VT Cat Skiing

I believe the issue has been discussed over at the Sugarbush Message Board forum as well, although I didn't have time to find the specific threads.

-J

I didn't bother reading the discussion in the MRV board, however I read the ones in the SKIVT-L and saw this statement:

This would only be the East's second cat skiing op, after Glen Noel's service in Newfoundland, which was featured in the Meatheads' Born From Ice.

This is wrong, from what I have heard, there will be TWO catskiing ops in Québec. There is one at MAssif du Sud which started last season plus another which is supposed to start this season at La Réserve. There is also the snowmobile assisted skiing at Vallée Taconique in the Chic CHocs.

 

[J.Spin]

~10:00 P.M.: I just took a look outside and noticed it was snowing here in Waterbury – there’s only about 1/10 of an inch of accumulation on the snowboard so far so I’m guessing the snow started fairly recently. The intensity is very light and the flakes are extremely small in the < 1 mm diameter range.

Temperature: 32.7 F
Humidity: 72%
Dew Point: 22.6 F

J.Spin

 

[Patrick]

A couple of centimeters on the ground in Ottawa and still snowing. Probably not going to wotk tomorrow, however it won't be for skiing. Youngest daughter is sick.

 

[Geoff]

I've got around 5" of extremely heavy snow so far at 2000' at KMart. It looks like it's right on the verge of changing over.