And the snow will begin within a few hours of noon on Tuesday. For several hours, it will be of the light variety and quite possibly the wet variety at the base of the mountain as temperatures hover a few degrees below freezing. It gets interesting with the onset of darkness Tuesday as a very impressive and intense area of vertical motion envelops all of northern Vermont. The snow will intensify dramatically and much of the accumulating snow from this system will fall in an 8-hour window prior to Wednesday morning. By first tracks time Wednesday, I expect 12-18 inches of powder to play in with temperatures in the middle to upper 20's.
The snow will slacken in intensity as temperatures cool throughout the day Wednesday but will not taper off completely and should continue into Wednesday night. Atmospheric profiles during the day do not reveal an unstable environment necessarily Wednesday but they do reveal very moist conditions stretching well up into the troposphere. Even a minimal amount of atmospheric lift combined with the little help from the Green Mountains should provide for a light but steady snowfall for an extended period of time. Enough for the additional 6-12 necessary to get the snowfall into the predicted range. Most importantly, the snow should be enough to provide for another powder day Thursday. If your thinking about wind, it will pick up in intensity late Wednesday and conditions will be quite blustery throughout the day Thursday. If your thinking about temperatures, readings will drop through the 20's Wednesday and will be closer to 10 on Thursday.
The leap year Alberta Clipper is also still in line to deliver for the weekend. Snow from this should arrive Friday evening and provide at least a few inches of powder for the ski day Saturday. It looks like we got some of the best skiing of the year over the next 5 days and there is no better place to enjoy it than MRG.
Thanks for the updates. I appreciate all the time you put into these. Can't wait for the skiing this week!
ReplyDeleteDo you guys keep track of your accuracy? This forecast was 25-50% accurate as the predicted amt was 18"-30" from this system and we got 9" I like hype as much as the next guy but get really disappointed when reality doesn't live up to the hype. Let me say that skiing in 9" of frsh snow is a lot of fun...it's just that it's another nice snowfall opposed to what I thought was going to be something really memorable.
ReplyDeleteStorm totals were around 15 inches for the storm as opposed to 9. With that being the case I find it kind of strange that you would bother to complain. I would take 15 inches of powder any day.
ReplyDeleteIf you have followed the blog at all, I have been wrong much worse than was the case with this last event. Just last Friday I predicted less than an inch and the mountain got 4-5 !!
Have I been wrong ? Absolutely yes and will continue to be at times (i can guarantee it)
Have I been guilty of hyping ? No
Hey, it's not an exact science. He's also been wrong in the other direction, so it's not like you can accuse him of always over hyping.
ReplyDeleteI've skied a couple of times since this storm and the only way conditions could be considered a disappointment is that no, it wasn't 30 inches of powder. Otherwise, the skiing is great, both at Mad River and everywhere else in Northern Vermont