Tony Crocker":1jf2r3dy said:
I'd be interested in JSpin's take, because his reports have been quite positive. How well does he think Northern Vermont will hold up as the season progresses? Personally, I think the East would be in trouble any year if it stopped snowing not long after the end of January. Average Vermont snowfall in February/March is substantial, and if they get it you'll have a decent spring. And given poor eastern snow preservation, it won't last into April without new snow no matter how much is there at the end of January.
It’s interesting to hear that folks are considering the season above average, because I’d put it at about average compared to the typical Vermont ski seasons that I’ve experienced. Of course, that evaluation is coming from my perspective, so it’s certainly relative. We’ve had some nice weekends for skiing this season, but it took quite a while until you could absolutely plan ahead and know that the weekend was going to be stellar from several days out. It wasn’t until
the weekend of Jan 31/Feb 1 that I wrote my first email letting friends down south know that it would be worth making the trip up to ski in terms of coverage, surface conditions, powder, air temperature, winds, sunshine, etc. We’d had a lot of nice weekend and midweek days up to that point where everything came together, but no weekends where I could announce several days ahead that everything would be optimal and folks should definitely come up to hit the slopes. One reason for the delay had been that Bolton’s slopes were really blasted with wind at one point during the holidays while they were in a fragile state, and despite plenty of snowfall, even some trails that are typically more protected (like “Twice as Nice”) were scoured. That was somewhat a Bolton-specific situation since the resort’s trails face west, but that seemed to slow the first half of the season from really taking off in my opinion.
To get a sense of where the Vermont snowfall is at, I grabbed the reported season-to-date snowfall numbers off of some of the websites for Vermont ski areas in the northern half of the state. Here they are relative to the annual snowfall averages for the entire season, along with the percentages:
Jay Peak: 267”/355” (75.2%)
Smugg’s: 244/288 (84.7%)
Stowe: 246”/333” (73.8%)
Bolton: 209”/300” (69.6%)
Mad River: 152”/250” (60.8%)
Sugarbush: 181”/269” (67.3%)
Killington: 208”/250” (83.2%)
I’m not sure where we should be at this point in the season, and those numbers might be ahead of average, but of course as we discussed in another thread, quantity can only tell so much of the story.
Here’s how the snowfall down at the house compares to the previous two seasons as of Feb 13:
2009: 130.6”
2008: 153.3”
2007: 59.0”
Average as of Feb 13: 114.3” +/- 49.2” (S.D.)
Unfortunately, I’ve only got the three seasons worth of data (with a huge S.D. thanks to 2007), but that number seems reasonable since I’m guessing our valley seasonal snowfall average is around 150 inches. Our weather only relates to what’s going on in the mountains to a certain degree, because you can have those seasons where you get more elevation-dependent events, but my Waterbury numbers track pretty well with the elevations and give some good information for the lower-elevation backcountry. If this season really takes off in February through April then it would have a good chance of moving to above average in my book, and I’d likely have to call it good if we hit 200+ inches of snow accumulation at the house like last season.
So overall, I’ve found this season about average, but fortunately an average winter around here is pretty good as far as I’m concerned. Even below average winters around here can be great as long as you know when to ski; in 50+ years of data, there are very few winters where the Mansfield stake doesn’t stay above 40 inches of depth for substantial amounts of time. And as many people observed this year, numerous areas of trees are fine to ski before the stake actually hits 40 inches. Low snowfall winters can simply mean that we had dry, cold conditions like we did part of this midwinter, but the backcountry can be in great shape.
With regard to the whole snowpack/spring skiing thing, I’m actually surprised that people are making a big deal of it, because my experience is that around here, regardless of whether it’s a fantastic season or a crappy one (in terms of snowfall), the lift-served skiing generally ends within the same couple of weeks. This is especially true since it’s the snowmaking trails that dictate the end of the season at a lot of the ski areas, not the natural snow trails.
J.Spin
