Current VT Ski Conditions

Marc_C

Active member
From: https://www.instagram.com/p/_klXS-CAS1/

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Marc_C":mn6zdjfw said:
LOL. That would be deep coverage where I live. Been incredibly warm (all-time records). I swear the grass is starting to grow again and is turning greener and my wife noticed bulbs coming up in our flower garden last weekend. And there are new buds on our Lilac bushes. Supposed to be 70 here tomorrow. First time I can remember no skiing at all over Christmas in this part of New England. A total wipeout for the ski areas.
 
"Ski The Patch If You Can":

[facebookvideo]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153654501840432[/facebookvideo]
 
I'm surprised how little the patches at MRG are.

Greek Peak got the Bunny hill/chair (Alpha slope) open for a couple of days before having to shut that back down. Plus the patch skiing appears to be much bigger (on a relative basis). I mean you might even be able to link some of the upper patches based on that pic.

CaptureGP.JPG
 
Scott sent me this pic of Stowe.
 

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Current UT ski conditions. (Oh, that's a V? I thought it was a U. Never mind.) #justcuzimadouchebag
 

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I was in NYC Dec. 11-22. 5 of those 10 days it was warmer in NY than in LA. And Christmas Eve in NY was warmer than any of the days I was there.

I have the Northeast at 21% of normal snowfall as of Dec. 23. There is no Nov/Dec in my snow data even close to that low. That 21% is also worse than California at this time during any of the past 4 drought seasons. And of course the temperatures are having an even bigger impact than the low snowfall.

I think it's a fairly easy call that this is the worst holiday ski season in Northeast history. Fortunately I have the 7 western regions collectively at 129%. And Utah is still the lowest of those 7 western regions as percent of normal at 108%.
http://bestsnow.net/seas16.htm
 
Didn't feel quite right to create a new thread since this is very related to this topic.

You know it's desperate when snowmaking is occurring at ~30F and 92% humidity... Look at how vertical they have the guns pointed at the currently closed Greek Peak tonight (basically 100% straight up on the cannon at the bottom of the mtn).

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Also interesting to see is the lake effect snow coming off of.... the finger lakes (not the great lakes). Tiny narrow bands that happen from zero to maybe 2 times a year depending on wind direction, water vs air temps, lake frozen-ness, etc...

Finger Lake Effect.JPG
 
Tony Crocker":875swoii said:
I was in NYC Dec. 11-22. 5 of those 10 days it was warmer in NY than in LA. And Christmas Eve in NY was warmer than any of the days I was there.

I have the Northeast at 21% of normal snowfall as of Dec. 23. There is no Nov/Dec in my snow data even close to that low. That 21% is also worse than California at this time during any of the past 4 drought seasons. And of course the temperatures are having an even bigger impact than the low snowfall.

I think it's a fairly easy call that this is the worst holiday ski season in Northeast history. Fortunately I have the 7 western regions collectively at 129%. And Utah is still the lowest of those 7 western regions as percent of normal at 108%.
http://bestsnow.net/seas16.htm
From my sometimes faulty memory, I would say the worst start to the ski season in the Northeast during my skiing lifetime (50 years or so). I would also say that the "21% of normal" snowfall so far in the 2015/2016 ski season is a very optimistic estimate.. So far, we have had 0% of "normal" snowfall. Some snow is predicted to fall tonight into tomorrow but may turn to sleet, freezing rain and then just plain rain in some sections of New England.
 
berkshireskier":2ug9ryyf said:
I would also say that the "21% of normal" snowfall so far in the 2015/2016 ski season is a very optimistic estimate.
I don't track southern New England/mid-Atlantic snowfall as it tends to be less than 150 inches average. This means:
1) Most areas with snowfall that low don't keep records, and
2) Ski quality is more dependent upon temperatures/snowmaking than natural snow.

Last year was of course an exception. Which explains why I had the upper New England areas I track at 90%, while the areas farther south that I don't track had far above whatever normal snowfall is.
 
Tony Crocker":9l39arjv said:
berkshireskier":9l39arjv said:
I would also say that the "21% of normal" snowfall so far in the 2015/2016 ski season is a very optimistic estimate.
I don't track southern New England/mid-Atlantic snowfall as it tends to be less than 150 inches average. This means:
1) Most areas with snowfall that low don't keep records, and
2) Ski quality is more dependent upon temperatures/snowmaking than natural snow.

Last year was of course an exception. Which explains why I had the upper New England areas I track at 90%, while the areas farther south that I don't track had far above whatever normal snowfall is.
Certainly, most ski areas in the southern and the mid-parts of New England average 100 to 130 inches of snowfall per season (and some years quite a bit less than that) but the bugaboo for almost all ski areas in New England (even farther North) is how much of that snowfall eventually melts away with warm spells or gets rained away during the course of the season. That is one of the reasons I question the validity of the "21%" of normal snowfall quoted above. Any snow that has fallen, including all the way up into Canada, is long since gone. It was 65 degrees on Christmas eve day in Burlington, VT and in the 50's on Christmas day. Tony is right that the quality of skiing in much of New England does, to a large degree, depend on how much cold weather (and the persistence of that cold weather) occurs for snowmaking. That was the unusual thing about last Winter. It was consistently cold (even brutally cold) right from the middle of January until the first week in March. And real snow that did fall stuck around and it was great snow-making weather.

See story below from Bloomberg on the bad ski conditions in New England and the Alps. UGH !!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... ne-resorts
 
Talk about working overtime to try and sugarcoat a crap sandwich. A lot of words saying it basically sucks.

From today's MRG snow report:

Yesterday we saw spring-like temps that surged into the 40's rendering us some soft turns albeit with thin cover. Today's continued balmy and wet conditions should offer us more soft turns as we will be enjoying skiing on nearly all of our legendary main mountain trails with skiing surfaces best described as "variable" serviced by 3 of our 5 lifts. By variable we mean that there is some decent skiing along the edges on top of the bumps and in various nooks and crannies. The recently groomed trails are skiing pretty nicely but there are certainly some ice flows to negotiate. With a positive attitude good skiers will enjoy themselves on the technical, steeper terrain, truly the kind of conditions that make MRG skiers great.
 
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