Vermont Snow Updates 2010-11

[J.Spin]

We headed up to Bolton for turns this afternoon and it was a blast. I did several depth checks in the 1,500’ to 2,500’ elevation range and got measurements of 26 to 31 inches for the depth of the new snow. The boys had a great time; even though they ski powder a lot, 2 to 3 feet of synoptic snow doesn’t come along every day, so it was good experience for them. It was one of those days where you could launch off almost anything you wanted, and they seemed to enjoy that aspect of the day a lot. I added a couple of pictures from today below:

Some of the Northern Vermont areas are approaching 3 feet from this event, and since it was a denser, synoptic-style snow, it was quite a resurfacing. I’ve added the latest storm total reports I’ve seen from the some of the Vermont areas below, listed north to south:

Jay Peak: 34”
Burke: 28”
Smuggler’s Notch: 30”
Stowe: 26”
Bolton Valley: 32”
Mad River Glen: 30”
Sugarbush: 34”
Pico: 14”
Killington: 14”
Okemo: 4”
Bromley: 2”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 0”

While this season has been more consistent than average in terms of winter temperatures around here, it has seemed pretty average in terms of snowfall and liquid because we went so long without any synoptic storms. I’d say with this storm though, we may have stepped into above average territory. As of this evening, the snowpack at the stake on Mt. Mansfield hit 90 inches, which is certainly above average. Below I’ve listed some of season to date snowfall numbers for resorts around here:

Jay Peak: 299”
Stowe: 277”
Bolton: 287”
Mad River Glen: 247”
Sugarbush: 266”
Killington: 227”

The snowfall numbers don’t seem outrageous for the Northern resorts based on their seasonal snowfall averages, so I think it’s going to take a big March if snowfall is going to end up substantially above average around here. Chances may be incoming - after a couple of clear days to ski the new snow, the NWS says that there are more storms lined up starting on Thursday.

 

[rfarren]

Jay Peak: 34”
Burke: 28”
Smuggler’s Notch: 30”
Stowe: 26”
Bolton Valley: 32”
Mad River Glen: 30”
Sugarbush: 34”
Pico: 14”
Killington: 14”
Okemo: 4”
Bromley: 2”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 0”

While this season has been more consistent than average in terms of winter temperatures around here, it has seemed pretty average in terms of snowfall and liquid because we went so long without any synoptic storms. I’d say with this storm though, we may have stepped into above average territory. As of this evening, the snowpack at the stake on Mt. Mansfield hit 90 inches, which is certainly above average. Below I’ve listed some of season to date snowfall numbers for resorts around here:

Jay Peak: 299”
Stowe: 277”
Bolton: 287”
Mad River Glen: 247”
Sugarbush: 266”
Killington: 227”

The snowfall numbers don’t seem outrageous for the Northern resorts based on their seasonal snowfall averages, so I think it’s going to take a big March if snowfall is going to end up substantially above average around here. Chances may be incoming - after a couple of clear days to ski the new snow, the NWS says that there are more storms lined up starting on Thursday.

This storm dropped 30 inches at Whiteface, and therefore was unusual in that it dropped more over on the NY side of lake champlain. Indeed, with a season total of 220 inches at WF, this season is already well above average and has a chance to be quite a bit above average.

 

[J.Spin]

From Powderfreak over in the NNE thread at Americanwx.com I noticed that some of the areas updated their totals this morning, so I’ve added them below:

Jay Peak: 42”
Burke: 30”
Smuggler’s Notch: 30”
Stowe: 28”
Bolton Valley: 32”
Mad River Glen: 32”
Sugarbush: 37”
Pico: 16”
Killington: 16”
Okemo: 4”
Bromley: 2”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 0”

On their website, Jay Peak noted that this storm set a 24-hour record for them with 32 inches falling between 1:30 P.M. on Sunday and 1:29 P.M. Monday, although in the NNE thread it sounds like there could be some contention with their numbers.

Below I’ve listed updated season to date snowfall numbers for some of the resorts:

Jay Peak: 315”
Burke: 185”
Stowe: 279”
Bolton: 287”
Mad River Glen: 249”
Sugarbush: 266”
Killington: 229”

 

[J.Spin]

With blue skies, temperatures around 30 F, no wind, warm March sun, deep snowpack, 2 to 3 feet of new snow, and reduced levels of skiers due to it being midweek, today was certainly a glorious day to be out on the slopes. There’s, really nothing to complain about. Having said that, there’s almost always some room for improvement in the conditions, and being NVT Champlain Powder™ country, I guess we could have a little fun with being picky in the conditions reporting process. I’d say there’s really not much to improve upon in the bulk of the day’s attributes listed above beyond personal preference, so I’ll just comment on how the powder skied. This storm really didn’t have much fluff on top of the synoptic snow, so the feel was more dense than usual. The density gave the recent snow great base-building properties, but it didn’t all ski quite as gloriously as if it had been topped off with a little more fluff. Down at the house, we actually did receive 2.5 inches of 4% H2O snow at the tail end of the system, and it sounds like the mountains had a few inches of that as well, but it seems like the wind had its way with it in places. My analyses down here in the valley revealed snow densities between 9.7% and 11.4% H2O through the bulk of the storm, which isn’t quite in the cement/concrete range, but there’s something about this denser snow and the way it behaves as it gets tracked up. Despite better staying power as a base, it seems to have less staying power as “powder” compared to the fluffier stuff. A good dump of very fluffy snow will create those trenches that almost fill back in after the skier passes through, and it’s almost like it can serve up fluff to round after round of skiing. But with the denser powder, it seems to take a much heavier hit when a skier goes through it. Also, the denser powder doesn’t settle as much, but it seems to set up stiffer as it does settle.

Anyway, with the subtleties aside, we found all different types of powder out on Stowe’s slopes today. I measured 16-17 inches of settle powder in the Meadows area, and it had a touch of wind crust on top, but it really skied well. I added a shot of Dylan skiing in the Meadows area below. In the trees we found anywhere from 18 inches, up to depths that swallowed my entire pole, depending on how things had settled in with aspect and wind. We found many areas with fluffy, deep snow that the wind had never seen, it just wasn’t the ultra fluff comprised of those huge dendrites that make that faint, high-pitched sound of millions of crystals shattering as you pass through. Groomed slopes were thoroughly resurfaced, although wind-scoured areas still had some slick surfaces exposed.

The Burlington NWS came out with their accumulations map for the storm today, so I added a copy below. Unfortunately their scale stops at around 24 inches, so it doesn’t allow one to see the subtleties of where the top end accumulations came in and the northern half of the state is essentially one color. The highest value I saw reported in the list was 34 inches from a co-op observer in Jay.

For those that want to get out and ski under the blue skies, tomorrow might be the last day because the next storm starts up on Wednesday night. It looks to be another warm storm like this past one with the precipitation battling back and forth between rain, mix, and snow right through the weekend, especially in the valleys, so conditions will probably be Pacific Northwest-like for a bit, before the precipitation gets back over to all snow Friday night. That's how things look currently, but we'll just have to see how it plays out.

 

[J.Spin]

The next storm coming through here starts up tonight. It’s a fairly warm storm like the last one, but the forecast calls for 3 to 6 inches of snow in the mountains on the front end, so I’ve added BTV’s latest graphics for the event below:

 

[J.Spin]

We picked up 3.7” of snow today at the house, and I've added the latest reports for this storm from the Vermont mountains below in the usual north to south list. The highest amounts seemed to be in the Bolton to Smugg's stretch, although the Killington area seemed to be another hot spot.

Jay Peak: 6”
Smuggler’s Notch: 10”
Stowe: 8”
Bolton Valley: 8”
Mad River Glen: 6”
Sugarbush: 5”
Pico: 7”
Killington: 7”
Okemo: 4”
Magic Mountain: 4”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 4”

 

[J.Spin]

Powderfreak mentioned updates to some of the recent snow totals in the NNE thread over at Americanwx.com, so I’ve updated the list below:

Jay Peak: 11”
Smuggler’s Notch: 10”
Stowe: 10”
Bolton Valley: 10”
Mad River Glen: 6”
Sugarbush: 5”
Pico: 12”
Killington: 12”
Okemo: 4”
Magic Mountain: 4”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 4”

The notable updates were in the storm totals for the northern resorts and the Killington region.

Looking ahead we’ve got some light snow coming in for the weekend, fair weather for Monday and Tuesday, and then two potential snow-producing systems in the middle to late part of next week.

 

[Admin]

Looking ahead we’ve got some light snow coming in for the weekend, fair weather for Monday and Tuesday, and then two potential snow-producing systems in the middle to late part of next week.

What about the deluge I saw streaming northward across northern New England on radar last night? That seems notably absent from your comments.

 

[J.Spin]

Looking ahead we’ve got some light snow coming in for the weekend, fair weather for Monday and Tuesday, and then two potential snow-producing systems in the middle to late part of next week.

What about the deluge I saw streaming northward across northern New England on radar last night? That seems notably absent from your comments.

I think in general people are aware that this storm is warm with some mixed precipitation and rain, just like the one at the beginning of the week, but the rain doesn’t really contribute to the snow totals or upcoming snow chances, so I haven’t added anything about it in here. For what it’s worth, we did pick up 0.03" of rain overnight at the house, but that was pretty insignificant, and I think the general consensus based on what Powderfreak said in the NNE forum is that the rain hasn’t been too significant up here. My focus in this thread is definitely on the snow; it’s far from some sort of unbiased weather and conditions reporting, but that’s why I went with the “snow updates” for the thread title.

I realize that people keep looking for a comprehensive type of weather and slopes conditions format in this thread, but that's not really why I created it; I think there are plenty of other sources for that sort of material. The NNE thread at Americanwx.com is pretty good for comprehensive weather stuff in ski country, and just about everything gets talked about in there, even if it’s less specific to the slopes. Personally I’m only concerned about when the conditions are good, and I’m doing my best to stay away from the slopes if they aren’t. It’s absolutely a bad setup for unbiased reporting over the course of a season. If I add something in here it’s typically related to good skiing, and on the other end if I’m not writing anything I’d say it’s along the lines of “no news is bad news”.

I’m not sure where all the other contributors are though; aside from an occasional post, it has seemed like it’s been dead for quite a while now in the Eastern Forum.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I'm firmly in admin's camp on the above discussion. We could all spend hours wandering around weather sites. I start with FTO for varied reasons, and JSpin's detail analysis of Vermont snow generally makes it easy to update my weekly chart. Given the minute detail that JSpin provides for snow events, I'm sure he could give us water totals for rain events, along with a brief discussion about the sequence of rain and snow for mixed events. A modest amount of rain that ends with snow does little to change ski conditions. But if the rain numbers are much bigger than the snow numbers, or if the end of the storm is rain, that's very relevant and I think JSpin should inform us accordingly.

 

[J.Spin]

I'm firmly in admin's camp on the above discussion. We could all spend hours wandering around weather sites. I start with FTO for varied reasons, and JSpin's detail analysis of Vermont snow generally makes it easy to update my weekly chart. Given the minute detail that JSpin provides for snow events, I'm sure he could give us water totals for rain events, along with a brief discussion about the sequence of rain and snow for mixed events. A modest amount of rain that ends with snow does little to change ski conditions. But if the rain numbers are much bigger than the snow numbers, or if the end of the storm is rain, that's very relevant and I think JSpin should inform us accordingly.

The bulk of what I've stuck in this thread are brief updates/excerpts from my trip reports, which as most people know are heavily biased toward when the skiing is good to excellent. Sometimes I'll also post about upcoming snow threats or the snow numbers from big storms, which are also likely to be heavily biased toward when the skiing is/has been good. All I'm really trying to mention are the snow numbers, not the weather as a whole. Much of that is material from my more comprehensive posts at Americanwx.com anyway, so I'll probably leave that there and stick to just the excerpts from reports here as to not give the impression that I'm trying to provide unbiased weather information. I'd say this thread is a good way to find out when one can get good skiing in Northern Vermont, but with the current lack of input from almost anyone else, it's certainly not a place to go to find out about how other factors are affecting the snow. I've been keeping the thread alive, but to some degree, I'd say the Vermont-based snow thread here has probably outlived much of its usefulness anyway; there appear to be very few regular posters in the Eastern Forum now, and of those regular posters, few if any who are focused on Vermont skiing. For the most part I'm just talking to myself in the thread now with little input from any other Vermont skiers, which makes it even more biased and probably served just as well by a blog like others (Rivercoil, Harvey, etc) have done.

 

[Harvey]

I don't get to ski VT very often, so I'm not that concerned with the exact details of the snow reports.

I did pay attention leading up to our recent trip to Jay Peak.

I watch this thread because I like pictures of soft deep snow, and I like to see J+E's teleripper kids.

When they hit the bigtime, I'll say I "knew" them when.

=D>

 

[j howard]

hey J , i don't post here much at all, but being that i'm from down by syracuse and it's a hike up to VT, i find your posts really helpful and i follow this thread regularly. so even though you might feel like you're talking to yourself, i'm in the room, and i'm listening. thanks to a few of your updates i've made the trip up and caught some of the last few year's best storms.... so thanks, and keep it up!

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I get lost in the minutiae of his snow analysis, but whenever J. Spin posts a new update, I always check out and drool over the magazine-quality photos. The fact that the subjects are his kids 90% of the time makes it even more extraordinary.

 

[Anthony]

I would say keep up the reports as try to ski in vt whenever time permits so reports and links provide good insight into conditions.

 

[Patrick]

Jay, I haven't posted much anywhere on the internet as I've been busy with my daughter's racing and have been almost exclusively skiing local. The fact that I'm trying to concentrate my posts (current and past) in one place also time consuming. I'm even ignore the weather as I find it depressing not being able to make it to Vermont much. The fact that my daughter's knee injury makes it even worst as we were looking forward for one week in Vermont for our Spring Break.

As mentioned by other before me, this thread is extremely valuable for those of us that make it to Vermont now and then. We all now when it going to rain (sometimes some would over estimate it based on where they live - I know as I offer hear about rain in the East while we get snow or no precipitation in Ottawa).

Keep up the go work wherever you do it.

 

[J.Spin]

I figured I’d add in an update on the ski conditions from the weekend, which went from good on Saturday at Bolton to great on Sunday at Stowe. Saturday had seen just a couple inches of new snow when I headed up to Bolton in the afternoon. Up high, conditions were assisted by the new snow bonding to the surface underneath, and down low where there was less new snow, the temperatures were warm enough to keep the surfaces pretty soft. With this combination, there was something decent to ski at all elevations. When I ventured off piste I found some good turns in the middle elevations in the Villager Trees.

I did find some melt crust in spots, but often there was just a thicker layer below some of the new snow. It certainly wasn’t the typical easy off piste skiing conditions, but it was fun and workable if you stayed on your game. It is March now so there are going to be some of these transitionary days. Everything on the mountain was open and in decent shape though, so that was good to see.

Snow started up again Saturday night, and I’m not sure how things were at Stowe on Saturday, but by the time we hit the mountain on Sunday afternoon, conditions were great to even excellent on parts of the upper mountain. It snowed all day, with minimal accumulation at the lower elevations, but my depth checks were revealing 6 to 7 inches of medium-weight powder up at the top of the gondola by mid afternoon. Powderfreak even headed up to the mountain for a bit and put some nice shots in his report in the NNE thread at Americanwx.com. He also indicated that Sugarbush was reporting 9 inches of new snow by mid afternoon, and it sounds like the conditions were pretty impressive there because xlr8r called it a top 5 day in his report at AlpineZone. Anyway, on our end, after some on piste runs I got some of the boys off piste in the Hazelton area and I wish we could have done that all day because conditions were fantastic. With that Hazelton terrain the skiing was steep and deep, and I have no idea why there wasn’t any subsurface, but even at the middle elevations it was often bottomless. At one point Ethan had to get off his skis and he was up to his neck in the powder (granted he’s only 4 feet tall or so); I literally had to pull him out of the snow to get him back to his skis. I’m not sure if temperatures had even gone above freezing at the summit elevations in recent days, but clearly something was keeping the snow good in the trees as low as the middle elevations. In the lowest elevations the snow was a bit wet off piste, so not really optimal for powder skiing, but at least on piste, we found the conditions great for carving from top to bottom.

Additional details and pictures from the weekend can be found at J&E Productions.

I still contend that having to spend extra effort highlighting possible deluges of rain seen on radar in what was already established as a relatively warm, spring-like storm system wasn’t really worth the time or distraction, especially when there was snow to discuss and any rain wasn't going to have had much effect on the state of a deep snowpack that had already been transitioning due to temperatures anyway. It’s good that people are interested in different aspects of the weather and how it all works out in terms of the skiing, since that will make the thread more comprehensive, but my focus is definitely on the snowfall. In the end the whole setup worked out fine anyway, since most elevations got back to business as usual with the powder conditions.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I must respectfully disagree with the final comments. From what I know Northeast weather is very complex and highly variable. Sometimes the rain/snow line is by latitude. Sometimes it's how far from the coast (rain in Vermont, snow in the Adirondacks). Sometimes it's altitude related, as is common in the West. Why should we have to guess from this report, especially for those of us not living in the area?

From this report my guess is:
It probably rained Friday at Bolton/Stowe, presumably Sugarbush also, but only up to 2,500 feet or so. New snow Saturday restored winter conditions to upper/mid elevation, but it's springlike at low elevation.

JSpin often posts storm totals from Killington north to Jay. A one sentence comment that a storm was mostly rain south/east of a particular location and mostly snow on the other side of that line (or what the rain/snow line was if elevation based) would be most informative.

 

[Harvey]

I must respectfully disagree with the final comments. From what I know Northeast weather is very complex and highly variable. Sometimes the rain/snow line is by latitude. Sometimes it's how far from the coast (rain in Vermont, snow in the Adirondacks). Sometimes it's altitude related, as is common in the West. Why should we have to guess from this report, especially for those of us not living in the area?

I understand where you are coming from on this Tony, but I must respectfully disagree with you on your comment.

On FTO and other forums, people post what they want. For example, not sure if FTO has guidelines for TRs, but many forums request that you put the name of the mountain and the date in the title to make the forum more useful and searchable. Clearly people don't always do this, and I think to some extent forum mods live and let live on it. Forums end up being a collection of what members want to post.

Maybe the problem is with the thread title. If Jspin named the thread "Pictures of my Ripper Kids" and he included the snow data maybe it would be seen as a nice bonus. IMO the thread is pretty well named - it's about snow falling in Vermont in the 2010-2011 season.

I look at the thread for what it is, not for what it isn't. For a long time all of Tony's pictures lacked a significant part of the spectrum of color but I still looked at them, learned from them and appreciated what they provided. Maybe that's not a good example because he did get a load of crap for it. :lol:

IMO forum posts should be appreciated for what the provide, not criticized what they lack. This issue is relevant to my own efforts on Harvey Road. I get a bunch of flack for what some perceive as a rose colored view of skiing in the East. Last January I posted Harvey's Disclaimer and it's a permanent part of my signature in our forum. Basically the translation is ... I'm going to post what I want, and if you don't like it, I'm sorry.

I've noticed that Jspin does seem to be turning his site into more or a blog (Is it Wordpress?) so maybe that's the way to go with it. Maybe he should just link back to it, instead of putting considerable effort to cross post. Personally I really like this thread, and will follow it as long as Jspin posts it.

 

[Patrick]

I look at the thread for what it is, not for what it isn't. For a long time all of Tony's pictures lacked a significant part of the spectrum of color but I still looked at them, learned from them and appreciated what they provided. Maybe that's not a good example because he did get a load of crap for it. :lol:

:lol:

I totally agree with Harv reply (not only the post above :lol: ).