The loaf burried!!april 18th

[Lucky Luke]

Here's a couple of pics of Sugarloaf. They got burried big time! They had trouble opening lifts (they were burried), the upper mountain opened only in the afternoon. Cant dog was again very good!

 

[Patrick]

Thanks Lucky... 8)

After our discussion this weekend, You definitely have the best work arrangement. Great balance between work & fun.

There is more in life than work. How many people that at the moment when they're about to die would say "I wish I had work more in my life"?

IF you believe in something and want to do soemthing... DO IT. Everything is possible if you believe in it.

 

[jasoncapecod]

There is more in life than work. How many people that the moment when they about to die while say "I wish I had work more in my life"?

I have a funny feeling my wife will disagree with you on this...

 

[Tony Crocker]

Pics of wind-blasted rime on the stunted trees reminds me of Mt. Baldy. 95 inches in half a month at an area that averages less than 200 per season also reminds me of Baldy. Anyone know why Sugarloaf's snowfall is so volatile relative to other eastern areas?

 

[riverc0il]

I may be totally off the mark on this one since I have only been actively tracking storms and snow falls for a few seasons, but it seems that Maine ski areas in general seem more prone to Nor'Easter activity? These past couple of belters seemed to come right up and whiplash into Maine pelting it with moisture with the cold air just close enough for lots of snow. Seems like VT areas have a lot more dependability and reliability with upslope and clippers whereas good Nor'Easters may happen a lot or not at all during any given season.

Seems like it to me at least, I would love to hear a more detailed analysis from our resident weather expert powderfreak to confirm or deny my hunch from limited observation.

 

[qcanoe]

Seems like VT areas have a lot more dependability and reliability with upslope and clippers whereas good Nor'Easters may happen a lot or not at all during any given season.

I lived in northern VT for 10 years. I've always spent a fair amount of time in Maine - went to college there a long time ago - and now have been living in Maine for five years. I agree with your assessment. It applies to NH as well as Maine. Vermont snow is definitely more reliable on the whole. Northeastern VT, in particular, is reliable. (West of the Green Mountains is much iffier.) I XC too. This gives a good perspective on natural snow hotspots (coldspots?) because there is no snowmaking to confuse the issue. Craftsbury typically has snow on three days for every two days that there is snow practically anywhere else in New England. I do think that the Maine areas that are well inland and high up - i.e., Sugarloaf and Saddleback - sometimes get some of the same local microclimate effects that benefit places like Stowe and Jay, though. The effect of Lake Champlain is overrated, except for early season squalls in the NW Greens.

 

[sszycher]

I'm going to disagree with Qcanoe on at least one thing: the lake-effect snows that N. VT receives. I say lake effect because I don't really think Lake Champlain has that much to do with it, it's usually more becuase of mosture streaming in from the Great Lakes that seem to give the Northern Greens very reliable snows when most areas in NH & ME don't get it (Cannon & Bretton Woods also benefit from this type of snow shower actvity, but the NH areas South of Franconia Notch and ME really don't).

When there is a low pressure system sitting in the Hudson Bay area of Canada, the cold air picks up moisture from the Great Lakes and doesn't encounter much resistance in Southern Quebec (hilly, but not big mountains...lots of farmland South & Southeast of Montreal), and ends up dumping on the favored locations in N. VT. By the time it gets further East, it has been robbed of a lot of its moisture.

With Nor'easters, the track of the storm is absolutely critical. Whatever region is on the favored NW flank of the storm gets hit the hardest. During the Valentines day storm, it was N. VT; during this April Nor'hurricane it was resorts in NW Maine (Loaf & Saddleback) who got nailed as the storm slowly drifted E/NE after stalling out over Long Island.

 

[J.Spin]

I'm going to disagree with Qcanoe on at least one thing: the lake-effect snows that N. VT receives. I say lake effect because I don't really think Lake Champlain has that much to do with it, it's usually more becuase of mosture streaming in from the Great Lakes.

Everything I've seen in discussions from the meteorological experts, as well as personal experience, indicates that you guys are correct. Lake Champlain really doesn't contribute very significantly to the traditional lake effect snow seen in the northeast; the east-west fetch just isn't big enough. However, even though Lake Champlain is too narrow to create any significant snowfall during the more typical lake-effect wind trajectories, it does have one thing going for it: it is rather long. The times you will see substantial bona fide lake-effect snow coming off Lake Champlain are when there is a fairly northerly wind (NNW, etc.). This wind direction appears to provide a long enough fetch to pick up moisture for some snowfall, and it seems to hit places like Chittenden/Addison County and maybe have some effect on the Greens near Sugarbush/MRG, but it?s not really a substantial snow producer for the mountains as far as I?ve seen. I think I?ve seen Powderfreak take Lake Champlain snowfall enhancement (Lake-enhanced snow) into account in some of his forecasts, as I know he does for the Great Lakes.

We had at least one nice episode of real Lake Champlain lake-effect snow this season (Tuesday, January 16th), and the band actually sat right over Burlington for quite a while. The band of snowfall was clearly evident on the radar, and it was an obvious lake-effect band because there were no other echoes around. Chris Bouchard from Eye on the Sky commented on it in his VPR report that day, and I believe Powderfreak may have commented on it as well. It was sort of interesting to sit under that band all day while many areas nearby were getting little if any snow, and it provided at least a small flavor of what it must be like for those people in the lake-effect areas of Western New York. My post to SkiVT-L describing the Lake Champlain lake-effect snow from that day can be viewed here:

http://list.uvm.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind07 ... -L&P=R3141

The real Lake Champlain lake-effect snow happens maybe once or twice a year and it is usually minor, but I can recall the day specifically this year because it was one of the few times when it snowed substantially more in the Burlington area all day than it did at my house in Waterbury.

I?m not sure if many people know that the Great Salt Lake actually contributes snow to the Wasatch as well, and I have seen radar echoes where it is delivering some serious moisture there. I?m not sure what percentage of the Cottonwood Canyon?s snowfall it provides however. It seems that in the Green Mountains, we do profit to some degree from the moisture of the Great Lakes, and even if indirectly, they contribute to the prodigious snowfall we get. However, I hesitate to think of it as too big a contributor because it would be hard to explain why the Adirondacks don?t do better in their annual snowfall (perhaps their annual snowfalls are lower from being too far away from many nor?easters).

One can?t help but wonder what it would be like if the Great Lakes were closer and contributed even more directly to the snowfall in the Green Mountains. Instead of 300-400 inches of snowfall a year, there might be 500-600 inches of snowfall a year. That?s just a rough guess based on what some of the communities directly downwind of the lakes can pick up, but I have no idea what would happen if you stuck Lake Ontario right up against the 4,000-foot wall of the Green Mountains. Someone should model that geography/topography on a computer and see what would happen.

J.Spin

 

[Tony Crocker]

Green Mountain snowfall range is 200 (Stratton) to 250 (Killington) to 300 (Mt. Mansfield) to 350 (Jay), all at high elevation of 3,000+. Not sure how much to knock off those numbers for base elevations under 2,000, I'd guess about 30%. I've heard that Jay can get some Lake Ontario snow that goes north of the Adirondacks.

On a map the Adirondacks look like a square, rather than the more conventional north/south spine, which we know in the West works best for orographic uplift. Also the ski areas in the Adirondacks are on its the eastern side, and the western side rates to get more snow, maybe a lot more with Lake Ontario's help.

Still waiting for powderfreak to weigh in on Sugarloaf. Maybe he's like Roemer and other ski weather guys, and closes up shop mid-April. His powder reports from Stowe are missing too.

I've heard lake effect is responsible for about 10% of Altabird snow.

 

[J.Spin]

Green Mountain snowfall range is 200 (Stratton) to 250 (Killington) to 300 (Mt. Mansfield) to 350 (Jay), all at high elevation of 3,000+. Not sure how much to knock off those numbers for base elevations under 2,000, I'd guess about 30%.

Yeah, I should have specified that I was referring to the Northern Greens (north of Route 2) when I threw out the 300-400 inches number, but that was the area that qcanoe and sszycher seemed to be discussing with regard to the snowfall enhancement. The annual snowfall amounts for the rest of the Green Mountains don?t seem to stand out from the NH/ME/NY snowfall totals to the same degree.

On that note, I always thought that the bottom end of the snowfall range for Green Mountains was more like ~150 inches per year down in the Mt. Snow area. The summit elevation there is 3,600?, which seems similar to the others you mentioned, although there may be a different reason that it?s discounted.

As far as base elevation snowfall totals go, isn?t that usually the lower range number that ski areas report when they give their ranges (i.e. 12-18 inches etc.)? One would think that the ski areas have those data. One good spot to get Jay Peak?s base elevation snowfall would be from the Co-op/hydrological reporting station there, which I believe is around 2,000?. Those data should be pretty reliable as well since they?re typically made by trained individuals.[/quote]

Still waiting for powderfreak to weigh in on Sugarloaf. Maybe he's like Roemer and other ski weather guys, and closes up shop mid-April. His powder reports from Stowe are missing too.

At this time of the year, Powderfreak usually keeps us updated on the weather the most when a potential snowstorm is brewing, but doesn't do too much in between. He did give us a weather update on Tuesday at SkiVT-L with regard to the weekend because it looks like we've got some clear days of nights below freezing/days above freezing. I think he wanted to let everyone know that the corn should be forming. I suspect he's busy as we approach the end of the semester though and hasn't had a chance to ski/post as much as usual.

I've heard lake effect is responsible for about 10% of Altabird snow.

That's cool to know, I had been wondering about that for a while. I think I saw mention of it in one of Marc's recent posts; it sounds like they're wondering if it will come into play in this storm.

Jay

 

[riverc0il]

I'm going to disagree with Qcanoe on at least one thing: the lake-effect snows that N. VT receives. I say lake effect because I don't really think Lake Champlain has that much to do with it, it's usually more becuase of mosture streaming in from the Great Lakes that seem to give the Northern Greens very reliable snows when most areas in NH & ME don't get it (Cannon & Bretton Woods also benefit from this type of snow shower actvity, but the NH areas South of Franconia Notch and ME really don't).

I disagree that Cannon and Bretton receive much benefit from the Northern Green upslope. Cannon's average snowfall as I recall is around 170ish, not much more than Loon which is 150ish. There certainly is a slight benefit, but things really have to hit the backside of Cannon just right. I think more often than not, the snow fall difference between Cannon and Loon is often due to favorable early season dumps that Cannon has received (see my November and December Trip Reports, and also Salida's, for back up on those weird two foot early season dumps that hit Cannon but miss most of NH).

 

[riverc0il]

I've heard that Jay can get some Lake Ontario snow that goes north of the Adirondacks.

I have occasionally noticed a thin narrow band of snow stretching from Lake Ontario directly to Jay, so this lines up with occasional radar loop observations I have made this year.

 

[sszycher]

R-c0il, you're right, Cannon & BW don't get nearly the lake effect "bonus" snow that the N. Greens do...maybe 1/2 or 1/3 of that, if they're lucky. I just included them in there because those are the 2 NH areas that get any bonus snows, whereas an organzied system is generally necessary for areas South of the Notch (although Wildcat being at a high el', will get a little, as well).

Peter King Memorial factoid that may only interest me: when you do a wikipedia serach on the Valentines Day Storm, the graphic provided is a pic of a house & driveway in Monkton VT, South of Burlington.

 

[riverc0il]

R-c0il, you're right, Cannon & BW don't get nearly the lake effect "bonus" snow that the N. Greens do...maybe 1/2 or 1/3 of that, if they're lucky.

From my experiences with Cannon vs. Northern Greens, much less than even 1/3. NH relies more on the coastal storm that tracks slightly inland. They really don't get any of the upslope that is typical of the Northern Greens, they are two different weather patterns. Same with Burke which, even those in in the Northeast Kingdom, I associate with NH weather patterns.