Vermont Snow Updates 2009-10

[Anthony]

The MRG website also posting pictures of what appears to be a few inches of snow . Enough to make those October turns for the record books

[Admin]

The MRG website also posting pictures of what appears to be a few inches of snow . Enough to make those October turns for the record books

It was done elsewhere in New England today:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/News/2 ... o-Gallery/

[icelanticskier]

wildcat had 2 inches base, 4 inches mid, and 6 inches at summit today. i went up on foot while a friend skied T2B. it was snowing like heck while on our way down. glad i left my skis in the car though as i'm not into skiing on grass. tomorrow, i'll head up onto mt washingtons upper reaches tomorrow on the xc gear to tour.

rog

[J.Spin]

On the way home to Waterbury today, I could see that the snow level had certainly risen from where it was early this morning. It was clearing out in Burlington with a good amount of blue sky showing, and to some extent this clearing process was even going on in the Winooski Valley. Despite the clearing trend revealing a bit more of the mountains, there was no sign of any snow at all right through to the town of Bolton, with clouds still hanging around on the mountains from about 1,500’ on up. The temperature at the bottom of the Bolton Valley access road (340’) was around 40 F, and it wasn’t until around 1,500’ near the Timberline Base that there was any snow along the road. Clearing skies in the valley turned to clouds and spitting rain a few hundred feet up the access road, which mixed with sleet and intensified around 1,000’ and then became snow at around 1,500’. Up at the village (~2,100’), there were 1-2 inches of snow still remaining on most surfaces, and the temperature was 34 F. It wasn’t quite enough snow to entice me to ski, but I did go for a short hike up to the top of the Snowflake Lift (2,400’). It was quite fun taking a jaunt through the new snow, and as Powderfreak mentioned in his report from Stowe today, there was a notable difference between the accumulations on grassy areas and what was on the service roads. By the time I was up there, whatever snow had been on the service roads had mostly melted on the bottom half of the mountain, but the snow on the grassy surfaces was still going strong. There was a nice even accumulation of snow on the unloading platform at the top of the Snowflake lift, and the depth there was 3 inches. The skiing on the grassy surfaces looked like it would have been decent, and I’d imagine things were even better if one ascended higher on the mountain into deeper snow and colder temperatures. It snowed on and off while I was up there, and looks like there’s still a bit more precipitation coming in on a northwest flow this evening. Our temperature is 37-38 F down here in the valley, so the snow line shouldn’t be too far up the mountainsides. A few pictures from today’s trip have been added below:









J.Spin

[J.Spin]

I haven't been up into the higher elevations since Tuesday, but there's been a lot of skiing going on around here so I figured I'd pass on a few reports for those that are interested in the conditions. Based on the Monday reports from Powderfreak and The Famous Internet Skiers, it sounds like accumulations on Mt. Mansfield topped out around 5-6 inches on some surfaces. Since then there has been some consolidation of the snow, but also some additional snow showers to add a bit more.

Stowe 13OCT2009 (Powderfreak) Text/Images/Images

Mad River Glen 13OCT2009 (Jumpin' Jimmy) Text

Bolton Valley 14OCT2009 (Powderfreak) Text & Images

Mad River Glen 15OCT2009 (Jonathan Shefftz) Text

Yesterday with some clearing in the Champlain Valley, it was easy to see a well defined snow line out in the mountains that was probably a bit under the 2,000' level. With the way the temperatures have been staying cold, it looks like skiing should be around right through the weekend for those that are interested.

J.Spin

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley Timberline area - 15OCT2009

I was hiking up at Bolton’s Timberline area yesterday and have a quick update on the mountain snowpack there. Down at the Timberline base (~1,500’) the scene was very much an autumn one, with fairly dry ground conditions and foliage that’s a bit past peak. At around 3:30 P.M. my car thermometers were both indicating a temperature of 36 F. Heading upward in elevation, I encountered the first clumps of snow around 1,700’, and ground conditions became a bit wetter. I hiked up to around 1,800’ – 1,900’, where snow coverage was starting to become a thin, continuous coating in sheltered areas. I believe the temperature was close to freezing up at that elevation when I’d arrived, but based on the way the snow set up after a while, it was below freezing as sunset approached. It wasn’t too far above me in elevation where the continuous, deeper snowpack was present even in open areas of the trails. It was a pretty dramatic snow line where that deeper snow started, and based on what I saw, I’d say that it was ~100’ below the elevation of the Timberline mid station (~2,250’). That would suggest an elevation of ~2,150’ for that snow line, which is right around the elevation of Bolton’s main base area. We often get these October snowfall events, but the snow typically doesn’t hang around with such tenacity, even in the mountains. It’s sort of strange to look at the scene from Burlington each day and see Bolton’s trails sitting there covered with white for so long. A couple images from yesterday afternoon are included below:







J.Spin

[J.Spin]

Bolton Valley Timberline area - 17OCT2009

I was hiking up at Bolton Valley today with the boys and there’s been some change in the snow coverage since I was last there on Thursday. We started hiking at the base of the Timberline area (~1,500’) where the temperatures were in the 40s F. The elevation at which we saw the first saw patches of snow was at ~1,800’, up about 100’ since Thursday. There was an even bigger rise in the elevation where continuous snow started. Whereas that line was below the elevation of the Timberline mid station (~2,250’) on Thursday, it is now up above the mid station. We couldn’t see where it was, and didn’t head up to the main part of the mountain to check out how the snow is faring there, so that’s all I can report. In general though, the snow line has risen over the past couple of days, at least in open areas on the western slopes of the Greens.

J.Spin

[J.Spin]

We haven't had much in terms of snowfall except a small event or two in the mountains since I last posted, but things have cooled in the valleys for this event and we picked up our first accumulating snowfall at the house, so here are a couple of updates:

November 4th - morning

The clouds have started lifting off the Green Mountains and I can see that we got some new snow last night; the snow line at this point looks to be in the 2,500'-3,000' range. It sounds like there could be more snow on the way in the next couple of days, possibly even down to the lower valleys again based on Roger Hill's comments in his broadcast this morning.


Thursday, November 05, 2009

This morning at 5:00 A.M. the temperature at the house was 32.2 F. When I checked outside for precipitation there was very light snow falling, but no obvious accumulation visible, and over the next hour the temperature fluctuated in the 31 – 33 F range. I was on my way out the door right around 6:00 A.M. and made a quick check on the snowboard – I found that the snow had accumulated to a bit more than a tenth of an inch, which actually resulted in our first accumulation of the season since we didn’t pick up anything from the October events. Accumulations seemed similar back toward the center of Waterbury, with a dusting on roofs of houses and cars, but I didn’t see any notable accumulations as I headed through the Winooski Valley to the Champlain Valley.

With regard to the dates of first accumulating snowfalls since we’ve been at our current location, this event seems to fall somewhere in the middle of the range:

‘06-‘07: 10/20/2006
‘07-‘08: 11/16/2007
‘08-‘09: 10/28/2008
‘09-‘10: 11/05/2009

Based on the forecast, it sounds like there’s the chance for a similar sort of accumulation tomorrow morning as well.

J.Spin

[J.Spin]

Here’s my update to Eastern from yesterday morning:

“There was nothing new as far as snow accumulation in Waterbury this morning, but it sounds like some parts of the state received a coating. Even in Burlington we’ve had some frozen precipitation – a little while ago we were watching some graupel pellets bounce off the windows here at UVM.”

I hadn’t seen anything regarding the skiing at that point, but I just caught Jonathan Shefftz’ update from Prospect and it looks like they did well in terms of accumulation there. Temperatures were quite cool yesterday so I suspect there’s still plenty of snow for turns where the snow did fall. I should be up in the mountains at some point this weekend, so I’ll add an update if I see anything in terms of snow.

-J

[J.Spin]

Saturday, November 07, 2009

I was hiking up at Bolton Valley today with E and the boys, so here’s a quick update on the snow cover. We started at the Timberline base area ~1,550’ and saw the first traces of snow at around 1,750’. We hiked as high as ~2,300’, but the snow coverage had increased very minimally up to that point and there were still just patches here and there. Looking off to the south one could see that the evergreens had a substantial white coating on the north side of Bone Mountain, probably from ~2,500’ on up.

It sounds like coverage was at least a little more consistent up on the top of Ricker Mountain (~3,400’) based on WM Walker’s report of snowboarding up there today, but he still said there was just a half inch of snow. Powderfreak provided a nice report with pictures from Stowe today. It sounds like there’s only about an inch of natural snow up top, but apparently there’s lots of great skiing (~1,800 vertical feet) thanks to their snowmaking.

-J

[Anthony]

Watched a report last night that stated we are a close to a record in waiting the longest period of time for a measurable regional eastern snowfall . If it does not snow by early December we will set a record . We are already in the top 10 for the slowest start to the season with regard to measurable snow. Personally , my own record of skiing 6 consecutive months without the use of machine snow at elevations below 2000' is at stake

[icelanticskier]

IT'S ONLY FRICKIN NOVEMBER! it's so funny how so many folks, especially out here expect to be skiing this time of year. sunday river has offered skiing way earlier and longer than the past few years and the skiing is on par with most regions out west right now. because it's slow now, prob means that it will rock later, which imho is much better.

rog

[Tony Crocker]

IT'S ONLY FRICKIN NOVEMBER!

Agree 100%. It's practically irrelevant in terms of natural accumulation for the upcoming winter in the East. It is relevant in the West, but even there it's not yet cause for much worry at places like LCC and Mammoth that have some natural base even though it may not be skiable yet. Lower altitude places like Tahoe and Park City the odds of Christmas being good are probably reduced some. But even at those places we're not far enough along to predict much for the season as a whole.

Fortunately the converse is not true, as a big start at many places will affect the entire season, like Mammoth and LCC in 2004-05. Skiing anytime at Whistler this year will not suck, unless you're very unlucky and it rains high during the time you're there.

because it's slow now, prob means that it will rock later

Sorry, absolutely no correlation anywhere (positive or negative) between snowfall in the current month and snowfall X months later. It's the typical fallacy of short memory, since 2006-07 was an extreme example of this snowfall pattern in the East. The Sierra had a season like that in 1990-91. In both cases the pattern does not exist in long term data.

[J.Spin]

It's been a couple of weeks since my last report on local snow, and although there's currently nothing new on the ground to mention, there may be some snow on the way this weekend. People that are interested in natural snow for turns around here should keep their eyes on the weather in the next several days. The folks on Eastern have known about this impending change to winter during the Thanksgiving period for a couple of weeks, and I mentioned it in the Storm Prediction thread. I bring it up now because the models are starting to come into agreement about something big happening this weekend, Powderfreak just sent out his preliminary update on the situation, and The Burlington NWS Office has already started to alert people about this potential large-scale storm system during the holiday weekend. Powderfreak and the BTV NWS are of course quite level-headed and professional about their forecasting, so if they are discussing this event at this stage, it is certainly something to watch. As Powderfreak mentions in his discussion, this event could contain substantial liquid, and holds the potential for 30 inches of snow in the Northern Greens depending on its track. Obviously the exact track will dictate who gets the snow, but with the developing level of agreement among the weather models, it's likely that someone in the Northeast is going to get some white stuff out of this event, and those that are flexible can probably find something to turn on this weekend.

-J

[J.Spin]

The higher elevations of Vermont are already getting snow with this event as of roughly noontime; it looks like the snow level is in the 3,000’ range and dropping. John Atkinson indicated that the upper elevations of Sugarbush have been getting white, and the Coles Pond Weather Cam (in the 2,300’ range) is already showing a nice coating of white on the ground.

J.Spin