Is the East Coast season finished? (powder-wise, that is)

Tony Crocker":2tu2lfl2 said:
[in my regional snowfall trends as 108-120% of normal snowfall. Most eastern areas are likely to come in that range I think. The vrmthist.htm chart will be closer to average because of the likely premature cutoff of the late season.
Click to expand...

I don't recall of drought in mid-winter for such a long period, mind you I'm talking about what the city of Ottawa received in February/March which is only slightly ablove the October total of this year. :( The storm (and the other systems) that I enjoyed at Jay in late February totally bypassed us.

Here are the EC Ottawa Airport numbers. These are centimeters folks. :(

2007-08 2008-09 avg diff
october 0 11.2 4.1 7.1 273%
november 59.8 25.2 21.9 3.3 115%
december 121 85.2 57.2 28 149%
january 42.4 80.4 55.2 25.2 146%
february 89.9 14.8 46 -31.2 32%
march 113.4 2.4 39.8 -37.4 6%
april 6.2 0 11 -11
may 0 0 0.6 -0.6
total 432.7 219.2 235.8 -16.6 93%

The 14.8cm in February wasn't all in one shot, but in many tiny events. Only 2.4cm this month. Those numbers are 32% and 6% of normal for those two months respectively.

Local conditions is still okay with good general coverage, so ski areas should closed at around the same dates as usual. Mont Cascades was totally deserted last Saturday, regardless of the great conditions. ](*,) I guess people are thinking even less about skiing than usual (yes, we still have some snow on our lawns).
 
OK , I am going to play my last card as taking the snow tires off tomorrow so if that doesn't make it snow I don't know what will :wink: . Our Laurentian glacier north of the St. Lawrence is still holding up despite the fact that it hasn't snowed since February. Still able to ski without using machine snow but not sure how much longer.
 
Stowe still has 0 to no bare patches on all the trails I skied yesterday, and reporting 79 inches at the stake. If we get a storm we'll be in good shape.
 
In line with the above comment I'm still seeing 80-90+% trail counts reported in Northern Vermont. And reading the recent reports you're getting good spring skiing with nearly everything open as opposed to skiing in the rain or refrozen crap. So from afar the glass still looks half full to me.

I would also remind all that the past 2 Northeast Aprils were very unusual in terms of both snow quality and the amount of terrain open most of the month. If as is likely trails start closing soon and the mid-month Easter is basically the end of lift service, that's really not out of the ordinary.
 
RailingK,
Although Geoff adequately described March, temps up here in central Maine(ie Sugarloaf) are still good...pp/lg being the norm. Always a good 10deg difference @mountain from downtown Kingfield....so just check Weather.com. Trails are north-facing...so sometimes gets cloaked from rain for part of day....
Lodging up @Stratton is pretty cheap...especially this time of year.
$.01
 
I was going to mention how the title of this thread was rather moot at this point as there have been a few powder days since it started, and now we've got two storms with snow on the way in the next several days... but the latest comments certainly seem to have a different take. What forecasts are people looking at? The BTV NWS is usually pretty on the ball around here, and if anything they are generally conservative on the mountain snow totals. Their discussion as of this afternoon:

Storm 1:

COLDER AIR ALOFT WILL MOVE INTO THE REGION SATURDAY
AFTERNOON...SO EXPECTING RAIN SHOWERS TO CHANGE TO SNOW SHOWERS
LATER SATURDAY AFTERNOON ACROSS THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE
ADIRONDACKS AND THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. SNOW SHOWERS WILL CONTINUE
INTO SATURDAY NIGHT...AND WILL LIKELY MIX WITH OR CHANGE TO SNOW
SHOWERS IN THE VALLEY LOCATIONS... SUCH AS THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY
AND THE SAINT LAWRENCE VALLEY LATER SATURDAY NIGHT. SOME RAIN OR
SNOW SHOWERS WILL LINGER INTO SUNDAY MORNING.

Storm 2:

A PROLONGED PERIOD OF UPSLOPE/WRAP AROUND PRECIP WL
OCCUR FROM TUES THRU WEDS WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR SOME SNOW
ACCUMULATIONS. EVENTUALLY THE SYSTEM WL PRODUCE/ADVECT IN COLDER
AIR FROM THE NORTHWEST AND RAIN WL CHANGE TO SNOW...ESPECIALLY
ACRS THE DACKS/NORTHERN GREENS. GIVEN...DEEP LAYER MOISTURE AND
FAVORABLE UPSLOPE FLW...A PLOWABLE SNOWFALL WL BE POSSIBLE ACRS
THE DACKS AND NORTHERN GREENS FROM NEAR JAY PEAK TO STOWE TUESDAY
NIGHT THRU WEDS.
 
That's fine if you are going north of Gore. But I don't expect southern new england to benefit much from this storm. Nonetheless, the nws is forecasting plenty of rain at whiteface.
 
What a bummer! I finally get healthy and the season is over. At least baseball season starts monday, but I doubt that will make up for it.
 
I'd be tempted to point out that we've had 150" here in the last 2 weeks, including 22" since yesterday, but that would just be snarky and mean, so I won't do that.
 
..;-)...You never know about Maine Springs...don't give up hope for the Loaf and maybe SR just yet. Temps are up & down and it really will be interesting to see how the next few days play out up here... Is too bad March has been what it's been... :roll:
 
I'd be tempted to point out that we've had 150" here in the last 2 weeks, including 22" since yesterday, but that would just be snarky and mean, so I won't do that.
Click to expand...

every dog has his day :D
 
Yup , Lots of rain and fog out there , March was like April this year :x In our area Environment Canada is reporting that we have had record amounts of rain this winter . No kidding ,suburban lawns are turning green.
 
J.Spin":2ah6bg4w said:
Storm 1:

COLDER AIR ALOFT WILL MOVE INTO THE REGION SATURDAY
AFTERNOON...SO EXPECTING RAIN SHOWERS TO CHANGE TO SNOW SHOWERS
LATER SATURDAY AFTERNOON ACROSS THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE
ADIRONDACKS AND THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. SNOW SHOWERS WILL CONTINUE
INTO SATURDAY NIGHT...AND WILL LIKELY MIX WITH OR CHANGE TO SNOW
SHOWERS IN THE VALLEY LOCATIONS... SUCH AS THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY
AND THE SAINT LAWRENCE VALLEY LATER SATURDAY NIGHT. SOME RAIN OR
SNOW SHOWERS WILL LINGER INTO SUNDAY MORNING.
Click to expand...

The first event seems to be panning out decently, as of 10:00 P.M. Bolton had 3 inches of new snow at the main base area, it's only getting colder, and from the radar it looks like the moisture continues to smash into the Greens and should keep doing so overnight:

04APR09B.gif


We could be looking at another powder day akin to Tuesday for those that want to get at it. The snow started mixing in down at this elevation at around 9:30 A.M. and if anything accumulates here I'll make an entry in the Vermont snow updates thread tomorrow morning.

-J
 
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