Vermont Skiing & Winter Weather
There’s a bit of snow falling and accumulating here, so presumably the mountains are getting some as well. It’s all small flakes that I’ve seen falling in the past 15 minutes, but I guess some larger flakes fell earlier because there are some huge globs on the snowboard and a couple tenths of an inch of accumulation. I’ve added the latest radar shot with this post.
I headed up to the mountain for some turns this morning and got in my first powder of the week, with more powder likely to come as the upslope snow continues to fall. I skinned up at Timberline and found 3 to 5 inches of powder at 1,500′, and about 6 inches at 2,500′. The full details and pictures are in my Bolton Valley report from this morning.
It started snowing steadily here in Burlington, and a look at the composite radar revealed a bit of precipitation coming in from the northwest. I’ve added the recent radar image here, and some additional commments are in the Northern New England thread at Americanwx.com.
We picked up 5.3 inches of total snow with this event down in the valley thanks to the second burst of snowfall that came through last night, and up at Bolton Valley as well as Stowe, they picked up a total of 8 inches of snow. I’ve added a picture of the radar image from around 10:45 P.M. last night that shows the snow still streaming into the area. I’ve added the north to south list of storm accumulations for the Vermont ski areas below, and additional details can be found in my morning update in the Northern New England thread at Americanwx.com.
Jay Peak: 6″
Burke: 5”
Smuggler’s Notch: 5”
Stowe: 8”
Bolton Valley: 8”
Mad River Glen: 5”
Sugarbush: 5”
Pico: 4”
Killington: 4”
Okemo: 5”
Bromley: 2”
Stratton: 4”
Mount Snow: 3”
As of 8:00 P.M. we’ve had about 4 inches of snow here at the house, and it looks like there’s still a bit of snow to go. We got a surprisingly good shot of snow this evening after the main round earlier today; I’ve added a radar shot of the evening snowfall as it was coming into the area. More information can be found in my evening update at Americanwx.com.
The forecast calls for the first spring snowstorm to come into our area today. It sounds like it could be close to a foot for some of the local mountains, but some of the latest thoughts in the Northern New England thread at Americanwx.com are that the northern parts of the area might be out of the more substantial moisture. We’ll just have to see how it plays out, but it seems like at least some snow is on the way. I’ve added in the accumulations map from the National Weather service in Burlington this morning, and additional details can be found in my post in the Northern New England thread at Americanwx.com.
Today featured spring skiing on the slopes of Spruce Peak, thanks to sunshine and corn snow on south-facing slopes. Details and additional pictures are in my Stowe, VT 20MAR2011 report.
The visit to Steve’s sugarhouse was great today, with the usual assortment of food, snowmachines, skiing, sledding, sugar on snow, and many of the other things that go with spring in Vermont. Temperatures were actually just below freezing, but with the sunshine and no wind, it was comfortable outside.
Additional pictures and more details about the day are available in my full report.The snowpack was plentiful, and we even got to do some skiing during the afternoon.
Don’t forget, it’s the official Vermont Maple Open House Weekend, so try to support your local sugarhouse at one of the open house events. We’re planning to head to my cousin Steve’s operation in Barton for their open house. When he called me earlier in the week he said to make sure everyone brought snowshoes because the snowpack is pretty hefty as usual. I think we’re also going to bring Tele gear and do a tour as long as the snow softens up appropriately for turns. With last year’s low snowfall, touring around had a bit of a different feel because there was only a bit of snow left and it was like a spring hike. His snowpack is often much more substantial than ours though, so if things are typical up there the skiing could be nice. Checking my records, it looks like our 2008 visit was at the tail end of March and yielded some very nice turns.
We picked up 0.3 inches of snow this morning that I hadn’t really been expecting. That puts us at over 30 inches for the month of March, with the next couple of snow chances coming up this week. Additional weather details can be found in my morning update in the Northern New England thread at Americanwx.com.
