Stowe, VT 17OCT2024

A view of some of the snowy trails of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont from the Mountain Road under brilliant sunshine with foliage after a mid-October snowstorm
Ski tracks in powder snow on the Perry Merrill trail at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont after a mid-October snowstorm brought more than a foot of snow to the higher elevations
A view of some of the powder turns on Perry Merrill. While yesterday was definitely the best day to get out in terms of fresh snow quality, today still delivered some very nice turns as long as you were high enough and early enough to avoid the warming temperatures.

With this latest round of autumn snow culminating in over a foot of accumulation on Mt. Mansfield, the setup was calling for some early season turns. With the way the temperatures were expected to rise today, I think yesterday was the way to go for potentially the best overall snow quality for powder turns, but I was too busy to get out to the slopes. I did get out this morning though, and while snow preservation was undoubtedly better yesterday, the clouds totally disappeared today to reveal incredible snowliage in the sunshine.

An image of Mount Mansfield in Vermont with the snowy ski trails of Stowe Mountain resort visible in bright sunshine after a mid-October snowstorm brought over a foot of snow to the higher elevations
A view of the beautiful snow and foliage from the Top Notch area on my approach to the mountain today.

I started my ascent from the Gondola base at 1,600’ and walked with my skis on my pack for a few minutes to get above the areas with the most melting, then I transitioned for touring and skinned up from there. The snow was already becoming spring-like down low in the sun, and areas in the shade featured refrozen snow. So even yesterday, the freezing level made it above the base elevations. I encountered my first real winter snow that had not seen a thaw-freeze cycle at about 2,800’ in the shade, and then at around 3,200’ I began finding some winter snow even in the sun. I made snow depth checks along the way, and here’s the depth profile I found in the late-morning to midday period:

1,600’: T-2”
2,000’: 4-5”
2,500’: 9-10”
3,000’: 12-13”
3,600’: 13-14”

Depths had consolidated a bit even up at 3,600’ based on Powderfreak’s pictures from yesterday, and the sun was really doing a number on the snow down low. The Gondola terrain gets hit by the sun, and the accumulations down near the Gondola base were just about gone by the time I finished my descent.

An image looking eastward from Mt. Mansfield in Vermont out toward the snow-capped White Mountains of New Hampshire while ski touring at Stowe Mountain resort after a mid-October snowstorm brought over a foot of snow to the local peaks
An eastward view out toward the snow-capped White Mountains of New Hampshire on today’s descent

In terms of the skiing, I encountered just about every sort of condition that Mother Nature can throw at you, from dense, silky powder, to refrozen areas with unbreakable melt crust, to spring snow, to sticky, freshly melted snow. Once you were down below the driest snow up top, the best approach was to fucus on the snow that was in that happy medium between seeing the most sun on the skier’s left, and that which had seen no sun on the far skiers right in the shade of the trees. The snow on the skier’s left that had seen some hours of sun was getting sticky, and snow that was shaded by the trees was still frozen with either an unbreakable or breakable melt crust, but in between there was an area of quality snow that had seen just enough sun to soften up but not get sticky. Once you were down below roughly 2,000’, everything was melting, so you just sort of kept going until you felt the snow was too thin. You could still make it all the way to the base with the help of shaded areas depending on what level of rock skis you might be on, but I took off my skis for the last few hundred vertical because I didn’t want to beat them up too much.

An image of the Gondola base are of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont with melting snow after a mid-October snowstorm brought over a foot of accumulation to the higher elevations of Mount Mansfield
Snow cover was disappearing in sunny areas down at the base elevations of the resort as I approached the end of my descent

That was a solid dump for the middle of October though, and with the bonus snowliage it was a great way to kick off the season.

Third round of early season snows for Vermont’s Green Mountains have been the most impactful yet

An image showing a mid-October 2024 snowstorm with over a foot of snow in the upper elevations of Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
An image showing mid-October snow accumulations in the mountains as viewed from the golf course webcam at Sugarbush Ski Resort in Vermont
The Sugarbush Golf Course Webcam was starting to reveal the mountain snows on Tuesday as our latest round of winter weather hit the Greens.

We’re wrapping up our third round of early season snows here in the Green Mountains of Vermont, and this cycle has certainly raised the bar with respect to accumulations. For several days, the weather modeling has shown the potential for a solid shot of snow at elevation, and as of Sunday’s runs, it was becoming more obvious that the event was coming together.

Personal observations related to this latest cycle of snow began for me on Sunday – I was up at Bolton Valley around 2,500’ and was getting into some frozen precipitation even down at that elevation. Right around that time, Powderfreak reported in from the upper elevations of Stowe Mountain Resort at the Gondola with a picture of big flakes coming down. As of later that afternoon, the snow level was around 3,200’, but it was expected to potentially mix all the way down to the valley floors by Monday. Late that evening, the 3,000’ Lookout plot on Mt. Mansfield was showing about a half inch of snow, so accumulations were clearly beginning.

By midday Monday, the Mt. Mansfield Lookout plot was at 2 inches of accumulation, and later that evening, snow was mixing in down to the valley floors as expected.

As of Tuesday, snow accumulations were pushing farther down the mountainsides, and the evening update from Powderfreak was that the 3,000’ Lookout plot had seen 7 inches of snow up to that point in the event. Snow was even mixing in with the rain down at our house at the 500’ elevation in the Winooski Valley, and our site recorded its first trace of snow on the season.

An image of mountain snows with fall foliage during a mid-October snowstorm at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont
By Tuesday, accumulations were starting to appear in the upper elevations of Mt. Mansfield, with snow levels continuing to drop and accumulations jumping as the event continued on into Wednesday.

Wednesday was the culmination of the event, with accumulations on Mt. Mansfield topping out around 15 inches. At Stowe Mountain Resort, the snowmobiles and snowcats were out trying to open the Gondola for summer/fall operations for the tourists. The snow depth at the famed Mt. Mansfield Stake came in at 12 inches, which is certainly solid for mid-October depths.  Powderfreak put together a great collection of photos from the upper elevations of Mt. Mansfield that nicely showed the accumulated results from this early season snowstorm.

This was a great early season event for the local mountains, and even at elevation, there were still enough leaves left on some of the trees to create excellent snowliage images.

First Round of October 2022 Snow for Vermont’s Green Mountains

Since our first snows of the season back in September, we’ve moved on into a new month and another window for early season snowfall.  This time the snow chances are associated with a series of small disturbances that started moving into the area last night and are expected to continue through the weekend.

The first notifications I saw of accumulation appeared this morning in the Northern New England Cold Season thread on the American Weather Forums – Powderfreak indicated that it was snowing all the way down to 1,500’ at the base of Stowe Mountain Resort, and flakes were even spotted as low as 1,000’ around The Matterhorn.  Powderfreak posted some images from both the top and bottom of the Stowe Gondola that showed the fresh snow.  As the snow and clouds pulled away a bit more by midday, he posted a beautiful snowliage image of some of Mount Mansfield’s slopes.

The temperatures stayed cold enough throughout the day that new snow continued to hang around on the ground, with the snow line rising to around 2,400’ in the midafternoon period.  Powderfreak sent along some additional nice views from his afternoon hike on the slopes of Mansfield, and he commented on how it was nice to be back out with the crunch of snow underfoot.

First snows of the 2018-2019 winter season in the Green Mountains of Vermont

An image showing Camel's Hump in Vermont with the first snows of the 2018-2019 winter season in the Green Mountains
An image showing Camel's Hump in Vermont with the first snows of the 2018-2019 winter season in the Green Mountains
Camel’s Hump showing signs of the first snow of the season for the Green Mountain of Vermont

While the first half of October was fairly warm, the weather models have been suggesting a shift to more seasonal temperatures as we hit mid-month.  The potential for some mountain snow was in the forecast last night, and indeed as of yesterday afternoon snow was already being reported at Whiteface Mountain across the lake with video of the flakes.  Here on our side of the lake, we heard from Powderfreak early this morning that snow had been sighted in the mountains around Stowe, and he was heading up for some investigation.  An hour or two later, he had send along pictures, and indicated that accumulations on Mt. Mansfield were about a half inch and started at an elevation of roughly 2,300 feet.

“…it looks like we’ll have more opportunities for snow this week with accumulations potentially even down to the mountain valleys.”

Here at our house, I did a morning check to find that the cloud ceiling was still only about 2,000 feet and there were no obvious signs of snow below that level.  I gave the clouds some time to think about clearing a bit, and then headed out in the neighborhood during the mid-afternoon period to see what snow might be visible.  Indeed the cloud ceiling had risen by about another 2,000’ and I was able to catch Camel’s Hump as the clouds had just about broken away.  The snow line at that point looked to be around 3,000’.

The first snows of the 2018-2019 winter season are in the books here in the Greens, and the National Weather Service Office in Burlington says it looks like we’ll have more opportunities for snow this week with accumulations potentially even down to the mountain valleys.  We’ll see what transpires as even colder air moves in, so stayed tuned for more October snow updates!