The fact is that Jay's summit is a windswept point of almost solid bedrock right at tree line on an already notoriously windy mountain. Jay officials have a hard enough time keeping any snow there at all, as evidenced by the snow fencing lining the upper Vermonter and Northway trails, the two runs that leave the Sky Haus tram top station. Without that fencing, snow would be blown straight to Canada. Instead, that fencing creates drifts that may be redistributed and groomed by snowcat to cover those two trails. I personally can't imagine how anyone could accurately measure snowfall in that kind of environment. And with such a cold, rain-free winter, why in the world would there be such a discrepancy between the upper mountain and lower mountain figures? All of this leads me to suspect that the upper mountain snowfall figure is complete fantasy.
Tony Crocker":1ap5o8lv said:
Scott Braaten measured 290 inches at Stowe's 3,014 foot snow plot, which leads me to believe 294 is a reasonable number for Jay.
Not necessarily. Even in a typical year, there can be a marked difference between the two mountains that are separated by an hour's drive. However, this year many of the big snow events tracked south as coastal storms, evidenced by the record snow that fell in places like Boston. These coastal storms aren't Jay's calling card -- in fact, "Nor'easters" generally deliver bigger snow to places further south along the Green Mountain spine and much closer to the ocean, like Killington. Jay is simply too far from the Atlantic and separated from that giant bathtub by too many mountains. Where Jay excels is on Alberta Clipper-type storms that come in from the northwest. The first mountain of any substantial elevation that those storms hit is Jay, resulting in orographic lift that produces substantial snowfall in a similar way to how Targhee squeezes moisture from storms that roll in through the Snake River Valley of Idaho. It's no coincidence that Jay fans refer to the "Jay Cloud" and Grand Targhee is also known as "Grand Foggy."
