COLD PERIOD FOR NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND

For the next 10days or so NE is going to be cold with plenty of snow showers. That if you believe the GFS.. A cold Oct's always jinxes the winter.. A la last year .. I would like to see a normal to warm Oct and Nov . Then let the pattern switch the first week of Dec.

With that forecast will anyone try to blow some snow and make it stick? I presume 10 years ago Killington and perhaps others would have.

Tony Crocker":1r2yrttd said:

With that forecast will anyone try to blow some snow and make it stick? I presume 10 years ago Killington and perhaps others would have.

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i am going to hazard a guess that yes, any one with serious plans to open for the veterans day weekend will be blowing during this cold snap. however, i don't think we will see any eastern ski area open prior to thursday november 9th unless we get a freak dump (this coming week's potential foot of snow will certainly not be enough). the major reason not to blow early is potential for melting and wasting resources, but with 10 day straight of cold (even during the day, not just evening time temps), this is a serious base building oppurtunity and i hope to see some ski areas step up to the plate to pile it on early to ensure they open by vets day.

Tony Crocker":3dau2fip said:

With that forecast will anyone try to blow some snow and make it stick? I presume 10 years ago Killington and perhaps others would have.

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Definately. Heck yes, Killington would open for a few days in the first real cold snap in October (often early in the month) then be closed for 2-3 weeks sometimes. I've always missed those old October skiing in those days do to midterm and the University Ski Sale organized by the Ski Team.

I'm not saying that what K did was good economics, but they would do it anyhow.

Patrick":2y3vofqj said:

Tony Crocker":2y3vofqj said:

With that forecast will anyone try to blow some snow and make it stick? I presume 10 years ago Killington and perhaps others would have.

Click to expand...

Definately. Heck yes, Killington would open for a few days in the first real cold snap in October (often early in the month) then be closed for 2-3 weeks sometimes. I've always missed those old October skiing in those days do to midterm and the University Ski Sale organized by the Ski Team.

I'm not saying that what K did was good economics, but they would do it anyhow.

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What Killington did was very good economics. They created a brand associated with snowmaking. Open in October. Close in June. If you can drag a hose to it, you blow snow on it. Make snow until you suck the snowmaking ponds dry. The American Skiing Company trashed that 30 years of brand management. The result? Killington skier visits were down 19% last year where state skier visits were off by only 6%. Killington and Mt Snow accounted for just about all of the decline in Vermont skier visits last year.

After last year's debacle, there must have been some pushback about their snowmaking budget. Rumor has it that Killington has decided to blow snow for an October opening. Their new policy is they only open when they can offer top to bottom off the K1 lift. The last ~300 vertical feet down lower Bunny Buster is something of a challenge in October since it's an eastern exposure at a fairly low 2500 foot elevation.

Geoff":353fdwbs said:

Rumor has it that Killington has decided to blow snow for an October opening.

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They have not started blowing snow, they have tested the guns.
Rumour also has it that Killington won't start blowing snow until the 26th..
http://forums.alpinezone.com/10650-kill ... after.html


With the ASC passes, I really don't think that Kton is going to open prior to the 9th or 10th of November, excepting a large-scale snow event ala last year.

Look for K to start making snow thurs or Friday is weather permits.

After next Thursday , Northern New England along with the rest of the east coast will start to warm up. If the models are right this cold snap is just a tease and bikini weather will return.
I know 288hrs in the tea leave section, but, the GFS doesn't seem to miss a warm up

so go get it while the gettin's good! thanks for the heads up jason. HOWEVER....

jasoncapecod says:

I would like to see a normal to warm Oct and Nov . Then let the pattern switch the first week of Dec.

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that's not the attitude we're looking for. :wink:

jasoncapecod":yc6ukggv said:

For the next 10days or so NE is going to be cold with plenty of snow showers. That if you believe the GFS.. A cold Oct's always jinxes the winter.. A la last year .. I would like to see a normal to warm Oct and Nov . Then let the pattern switch the first week of Dec.

Click to expand...

Jason,

Sorry but I got to disagree here. A cold October does not always jinx a winter, much to common belief. Research has shown that a cold October in Boston, NYC, Philly, etc leads to a 60% chance of a cold winter. I can get the research from the NWS guys at Mt. Holly, NJ if you'd like. A cold October and a cold November increase the chances of a cold Dec,Jan,Feb to roughly 75%.

Here's where everyone gets confused...last October was NOT cold.
As per Burlington's F6 climate report last October's departure from normal was +2.6F (not cold by any means) with 0.9" of snowfall. It was followed by a November that was +3.3F above normal. September last year was +4.1F from normal. The myth last year was that the last 10 days of October averaged slightly below normal and was coupled with a freak major snow event leading people to believe we were "using up the cold" in the fall...but they were only 10 days in a sea of warm to very warm weather.

Think about how last year's snowfall took place. Hurricane Wilma interacted with cold air to produce a massive October snowfall for the higher elevations. There's a red flag in there that not many people can pick up. In order to get a Hurricane or Tropical System up the east coast, a ridge needs to be in place over the western Atlantic and eastern North America to allow a cyclone with tropical characteristics to drift up the coast (remember it is coming from off of Africa and traveling "the wrong way" against the westerlies). Ridging has the westerlies/jet stream north of the region so Wilma could track west then northwest. It just so happened that a trough was moving across the country and was strong enough to knock the ridge down, capture Wilma's moisture, and throw it back into the cold sector. That single trough was responsible for a 10 day period of cool weather before the eastern ridge returned in early Nov. This year cannot be compared to last year in any way whatsoever.

For an easier comparison on departures from normal to show you where we are heading:
Burlington, VT
Month...2005...2006
Aug...+2.9...-0.9 (first below normal month in a long time)
Sep...+4.1...+0.8
Oct...+2.6...-0.6 (so far, and 2.0" of snow)
Nov...+3.3...???

We have now been consistently averaging a full 3F below last year and it has huge implications. Aside from climo data that shows there is a strong correlation between the fall months and the ensuing winter (if I get time I will find the research but trust me on this one for now), we now are building a Canadian/Siberia/Arctic snow and icepack similar to 2000-01 and 2002-03 (most recent correlating years). This is big for a few reasons:
1) It has a feedback effect along the lines of the greater the snowpack in the high latitudes, the greater the albedo, and it gets even colder.
2) We now have a source region for cold air on *this* side of the northern hemisphere. Instead of it sitting in Siberia where a cross-polar flow is needed to get arctic air into the U.S., more marginal patterns can tap the cold air being generated off the snowpack in Canada.
3) Air travelling southward out of the north crosses a much larger area of snow/ice meaning there is little to no moderation seen as it moves into southern latitudes. When Canada sits relatively snow-free, cold air coming from the high latitudes moderates greatly and is never truely realized here in the U.S.
4) The above 3 factors lead to the realization of modeled cold air blasts as opposed to seasons when it was *supposed* to get cold but never really did. Now, we have more faith in accepting the colder solutions and in return, modeled warm-ups can actually verify colder as opposed to the other way around.

I hope the above information discredits the common myth that October snows should be avoided at all costs due to some misconceptions of what happened last year. It actually turns out that October snowfalls are a good thing (heck it snows in the Rockies every October and you don't hear people saying uh oh).

-Scott

Here's where everyone gets confused...last October was NOT cold.

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Scott your are 100% correct..It wasn't a cold OCT . Just that freak snow event at the end of the month. I am a bit supperstious when it comes to Oct snows. The jinx thing ment to be tongue and check. .. I do not know how old you are, do you remember Oct 1979.. Snowed in NYC that year. The Winter of 1980 was cold and dry, atleast in the metro nyc area.....
All that said , I really enjoy reading your discussion . So much better than the NWS bozzos(sp)

Ahh, the winter of 1980 was the worst year of skiing on record for my stats. This was the year our school booked a January trip to Sugarbush /MRG. Well there was no snow anywhere in VT and virtually no snow at Sugarbush /MRG. I remember they had a few snow guns going that probably offered one run down Sugarbush /Sugarbush North but that was it. MRG only opened in February that year. The weather was just clear and cold every day. The snow gun infrastructure was not as extensive as it is today so they could not take advantage of the cold weather.

Heard this morning on NOAA radio that 6 inches at the stake on Mansfield so things are starting up.

For the eastern areas where I have 40 years of data 1979-80 was the lowest season at Mt. Washington and Killington and the second lowest at the Mansfield Stake.

Several years ago I ran monthly correlations of snowfall in order to check whether a snowy month increases the chances of the next month being snowy. I expected to see something because in the Sierra there is certainly a gut-level perception that weather patterns tend to stick. I recall concluding that the correlations were too small to mean anything.

So I'm inclined to restest them. Here are the results for areas with at least 30 years of complete November to April data. Percentages left to right are November/December snowfall correlation, December/January ... ending with March/April.

Area N/D D/J J/F F/M M/A
Killington 14% -8% 5% 27% -10%
Mansfield Stake 20% -12% -8% 41% -1%
Mt. Washington 45% 43% 4% 49% 22%
Alpine Meadows 12% 20% 1% -34% 36%
Donner Pass 9% 12% 5% -33% 31%
Kirkwood 31% 29% 22% -9% 31%
Mammoth 29% 22% 27% -7% 34%
Crater Lake 10% 36% 18% 9% 26%
Mt. Bachelor 28% 20% 27% -12% 27%
Mt. Rainier 27% 42% 32% -3% -6%
Whistler Alpine 15% -12% 14% -2% 8%
Alta 10% -7% 19% -37% -7%
Snowbird 22% -3% 14% -20% 3%
Brighton 24% -5% 42% -15% -4%
Jackson Hole 13% 20% 20% -26% 16%
Grand Targhee 16% 33% 31% 17% 39%
Glacier NP, Canada 16% -21% 29% -1% -19%
Lake Louise -4% -28% 23% 8% 13%
Sunshine -22% -5% 42% -6% -34%
Berthoud Pass 11% 10% 20% 11% 13%
Loveland 37% 22% 19% 23% 31%
Winter Park 27% 4% 7% -3% 7%
Gothic 18% 13% 21% 14% -10%
Taos 38% -4% 33% -8% 14%

Before we get excited about any of these numbers note the variation among close by areas like the 3 in Utah for example. Also note the negative February/March correlations in Utah and several of the West Coast areas. Does anybody have a meteorological explanation for this? Most of what we're seeing here is statistical noise IMHO.

Tony.. I am not understanding your study. What do the percentages represent?

powderfreak":hnn4b3nx said:

jasoncapecod":hnn4b3nx said:

For the next 10days or so NE is going to be cold with plenty of snow showers. That if you believe the GFS.. A cold Oct's always jinxes the winter.. A la last year .. I would like to see a normal to warm Oct and Nov . Then let the pattern switch the first week of Dec.

Click to expand...

For an easier comparison on departures from normal to show you where we are heading:
Burlington, VT
Month...2005...2006
Aug...+2.9...-0.9 (first below normal month in a long time)
Sep...+4.1...+0.8
Oct...+2.6...-0.6 (so far, and 2.0" of snow)
Nov...+3.3...???

We have now been consistently averaging a full 3F below last year and it has huge implications. Aside from climo data that shows there is a strong correlation between the fall months and the ensuing winter (if I get time I will find the research but trust me on this one for now), we now are building a Canadian/Siberia/Arctic snow and icepack similar to 2000-01 and 2002-03 (most recent correlating years). This is big for a few reasons:
1) It has a feedback effect along the lines of the greater the snowpack in the high latitudes, the greater the albedo, and it gets even colder.
2) We now have a source region for cold air on *this* side of the northern hemisphere. Instead of it sitting in Siberia where a cross-polar flow is needed to get arctic air into the U.S., more marginal patterns can tap the cold air being generated off the snowpack in Canada.
3) Air travelling southward out of the north crosses a much larger area of snow/ice meaning there is little to no moderation seen as it moves into southern latitudes. When Canada sits relatively snow-free, cold air coming from the high latitudes moderates greatly and is never truely realized here in the U.S.
4) The above 3 factors lead to the realization of modeled cold air blasts as opposed to seasons when it was *supposed* to get cold but never really did. Now, we have more faith in accepting the colder solutions and in return, modeled warm-ups can actually verify colder as opposed to the other way around.

Click to expand...

Scott, awesome post! I'm glad to see someone set the record straight with a myriad of facts! Snow breeds more snow!

-Porter

If 2 events are independent the correlation should be zero. If they move together perfectly correlation will be 100%. If they move opposite perfectly correlation will be -100%. This doesn't mean snowfall is the same. If Okemo got exactly 60% of Killington's snow every month the correlation would still be 100%.

I use this for reasonability in estimating annual snow averages for areas with incomplete data. Since Killington has very complete data I use it to project nearby areas. Killington monthly snowfall is 85% correlated with Sugarbush, 77% correlated with Okemo but only 53% correlated with Whiteface.

Next we move to the El Nino/La Nina correlations to monthly snowfall. Even at the seasonal level the closest fit to snowfall we get is in the 50% range in Southern California and -50% in some NW and interior Canada locations favored by La Nina.

In this thread I compare month to month snowfall within an area. If November is above average, how likely is December also to be above average? This is carried through for each pair of adjacent months to March/April. Most of these numbers are positive but not really high enough to be that predictive. And if you think they are predictive you must also believe that a dry February in Tahoe or Utah means March is more likely to be snowy.

What is going on here IMHO is that we intuitively know in places like the Sierra and Utah massive storm cycles and extended dry spells are fairly common. It is likely that one day's weather is quite well correlated to the previous day. By the time you get out to a month only a small amount of this weather persistence remains in the data.

It very easy to see patterns in short term data (October snow jinxes the NE winter, mid-January in Utah is dry, etc.) that don't mean anything and aren't predictive. I'm surprised I haven't heard any anecdotal comments about the February/March opposite weather in Tahoe/Utah since it has occurred in about 2/3 of the past 40 years including the last 3.

In terms of useful info I think the data lends some support to the often expressed advice that early season (before Christmas) destination bookings should wait until snow is on the ground. If an area is dry in mid-November there are 2 risk factors. The obvious one is that normal snowfall over the next month will result in mid-December coverage equal to Thankgiving of a normal year. The secondary risk is that the dry weather pattern that has occurred through mid-November has a slightly increased probability of persisting over some of the next month. And on the optimistic side maybe the area with an above average mid-November snowpack may continue to get snow over the next month.

My observations can be viewed independently from Scott's. I focus on snowfall/precipitation because that's what drives western ski conditions. Temperature is the more important driver in the East, both for snowmaking and for reducing rain incidence. The East is very drought resistant by western standards. It is certainly possible that temperature persistence through an eastern winter is stronger than precipitation persistence through a western winter.

Tony thanks for taking the time to explain your work. It is very impressive the amount of time and effort you put into it.

Tony, great stats as always. I agree that the West and East are very different when it comes to what drives good snow conditions (precipitation out west vs. cold in the east). Out west, there aren't going to be thaws that knock the snowpack back to 0" but it could happen in the east. Also, while some western areas need to get a 6-10 foot snowpack to be fully operational, most eastern areas only need 2-3 feet and everything is fair game. Thus, one major nor'easter can alter trail openings and conditions just as much as one thaw. While I agree if a place is snow-free come late Nov in the west, avoid it until it gets some snow. However, in the east, most places could be snow free in late Nov, then get a nor'easter in early December and be above normal in snowpack.

Still, a major factor in the east is building that snowpack over Canada (specifically central Canada...west of the Cordillera doesn't do us much good) so that even if the pattern goes mild for a time, the cold air rebound isn't far away. Also, then when we do get "cold" patterns, the cold can be realized instead of staying bottled up in Siberia.

I like the trends so far and it is a given that it will warm-up in November, both in the east and west, as it is a transitional month...but there's a difference between a 10 day warm up in a 3 month cold pattern and a warm up following a 10 day cool period when the prevailing pattern has been warm. The former can be dealt with while the later means we need to find another winter hobby.

A further reason for eastern skiers contemplating a western trip before Christmas to wait until snow is on the ground. We have had a few seasons where the Northern Vermont snowbelt has had a substantial dump in early December. It would be ridiculous to commit money ahead to this, but anyone in the Northeast within a day's drive can go after it on short notice. Much more sensible IMHO than committing the $ in advance to fly west and end up looking at rocks if you're unlucky in your choice.