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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

What a difference a year makes !

Its the last half of March, but Mad River Glen has finally found glory and certainly the best skiing since 2011. This storm was finally one that belonged to us. Snowfall was the best across interior sections of New England stretching from the Green Mountains of Vermont through much of Maine. The mountain should see a bit more in the way of sunshine and a bit less in the way of snow showers Thursday but a final impulse associated with this system should rotate through during the day Friday, a day which could feature an additional 2-5 inches of snow. This snow, if it comes, might actually help Saturday's ski day more than Friday's but its close. Temperatures will remain below freezing through Friday but might creep above freezing Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

We seem to have found a bit of mojo which would suggest that the Sunday/Monday weather system will actually move north and deliver more snow to the mountain early next week. So far there isn't much evidence suggesting this and we should still expect that the strong blocking wins out and keeps the storminess confined to the Mid-Atlantic. If there are indications of a change, twitter will be alive with the details over the coming days.

For the most part I think next week is free of any impacts from organized weather systems. Temperatures will be similar to what we will see this weekend, well below freezing during the nights but a few degrees above freezing during the day thanks to that strong late March sunshine. There are hints that some energy could get caught up under the Hudson Strait block and thus allow some moisture to rotate backwards into the Green Mountains re-invigorating the terrain-induced snow machine. Climatologically, March is a much more unstable period thanks to the higher sun angle. With the right jet stream configuration, daytime heating can actually allow snow showers to enhance over the higher terrain and we may see a little bit of that next week. There are hints of a bigger organized system around April Fools Day but there are also hints of some milder spring-like weather in the days to follow. If your keeping score at home however, the current March is running 12-14 degrees below March of 2012. March 21st and 22nd of 2012 were the days where many locations saw all-time record temperatures for March. What a difference a year makes !

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