Magic Monday: Retrograding Storm and Broad Cyclonic Flow Brings Snows (Updated)

December 6, 2010 12:00 pm | Category: Weather | 14 Comments | Permalink

I’ll get right to the point since I have neither ripped my pants, nor have any witty introductions prepared .

As we speak a large and powerful storm is churning out off the coast of Maine. As I said a week ago, this storm will be forced back towards the west by a large bubble of high pressure – that at the same time will slide out to the east making room for this large storm complex to take up residence over the eastern portions of Canada. As it does this large storm will spin a great deal of air down into the Northeast Untied States on a northwest wind. With a strong pressure gradient these winds will be robust!! A good thing. Strong winds will transport a great deal of moisture both into the North Country and transport a decent amount of moisture down from the Great Lakes into the Catskills (espically the western ones).

Lets look at the North Country first:

With a strong slow moving low pressure system rotating in eastern Canada winds in the North Country will be steady from 290to 320 degress. This is a great direction for the Greens and to a lesser extent the high peaks to induce a good deal or orographic forcing.   The models display the best low level upward motion downwind of the Greens (Maps from coolwx.com – a great site) :

With deep moisture:
null

Its very very likely the Northern Greens will see steady snowfall throughout the next 36 hours at the least.  The high RES WRF model run out of BTV agrees.   It paints the Mansfield massif and Jay Peak with upward to 1 inch of total qpf.  With very favorable snow to water ratios I could see a soild 8-9 inches over the next 36 hours in these regions.

The models are also having a hard time with the Adirondack  High peaks.  The show the northern lower slopes of the Adirondacks taking most of the snow, however based on reports I’ve recieved from the Lake Placid area, several inches have already fallen with blower still falling HARD.  Models have a very hard time with the region because of the elevation and somewhat jumbled nature of the High Peaks.  Suffice it to say that the ADK will see sustained snow  over the next 36 hours with the best accumulations occuring on North and Northwest facing slopes.  Comparing the accumulations to those in Greens will be hard as the reporting station of whiteface is a little removed from the best dynamics and Mt. VanHo is too low at only 2k ft.  In these situations Manny and Jay to tend to do better however the High Peaks are sneaky effective at trapping snow  and given what I’ve seen right now on the webcams and the fact that it’s positively dumping at times in L.P. I’d really not be shocked if sections of the High Peaks did even better than Manny and Jay.

Also picking up snow from this flow will be the Presi range in NH.  On a similar order of magnitude as Jay/Manny- MTW will see plenty of snow over the next 36 hours.  However with rippin winds good luck finding it on MTW.

UPDATE!!:  And yes- we are going all bold as Ms. Hutz said my level of excitement for this system was down- and it shouldn’t be AT ALL!! Snowfall overnight has been very steady and accumulations are reaching a 12-20 across the High Peaks and Northern Greens.  Snow is pure blower.  Let me repeat that: One to Two FEET. As I mentioned yesterday (above) and last week– last night’s strong orographic snowfall corresponded with deep moisture and a ton of lower level lift.    With strong signals that these conditions will continue through today, the snow should remain steady with another 6-8+ across the highest terrain through early wednesday.  Snow showers will then taper off and become spotty but still accumulations of 1-2 inches are possible each period until around the 10th when drier air will work in lowering RH.  Overall this is EXACTLY the types of storms I was looking for when I wrote in October “Lastly, I see many of these messy or wide right storms backing into the Canada, becoming vertically stacked, stable and steady. This is good news for us. This is a great pattern for periods of prolonged orographic snowfall. I think the best times for this will be December, and late January to the end of February.” See sometimes even a blind squirrel gets the nut!
Now to the Catskills:

With VERY strong winds from the NW a good deal of moisture from the Great Lakes will be transported deep inland.  Some people call these long drawn out lake bands  “streamers.”  Anyway with the flow lining up just perfectly over the next day or so, these streamers will bring moisture and snow right into the western Catskills.  A place like Plattekill, which is the furtherest west of the Catskill ski areas, and sits on really the first high ridge after the lakes will do best.  3-5 inches of snow are possible today, with another 1-2 tonight and 1-2 tomorrow at the least.  All in all a great way to set themselves up for their proposed opening weekend next saturday.


New Video: Manali, A fresh Look Back

By: Allen
December 4, 2010 7:30 pm | Category: Skiing, WebiGNARs | 4 Comments | Permalink

Upon my return from India I found that I had a wealth of footage from the time we spent in Manali. I was however feeling a little burnt out on the whole thing which clearly showed in my initial edit. I then decided to put it off for a little while. Here 8 months, a new job, and one cross country move later I have a cut that I am happy with.

Our time in Manali was by far the highlight of the trip. The climate of the Kullu Valley was very pleasant, our Rupees took us much further than in Gulmarg, the food and lodging was much better, and best of all we had our own transportation in the form of Royal Enfield Motorcycles. From Manali we were able to tackle the largest descents and highest altitudes any of us had ever experienced. None of the skiing was especially gnarly but the grandeur of the terrain was absolutely unmatched in my experience. I had never before been completely surrounded by peaks I was not capable of climbing or skiing it was a humbling and awe inspiring experience. The routes we were able to ski were the paths of least resistance in the gnarly landscape.
Continue reading New Video: Manali, A fresh Look Back


Solidly Mediocre!

By: Ben
December 4, 2010 7:10 pm | Category: Quick Update, Skiing | 13 Comments | Permalink

This week has been a trying one for a skier in the Northeast. Just a few days ago we endured temperatures in the 50s and rains edging toward Biblical status. This one hurt especially hard since it came only a few days after things were looking up.

Anyway, winter has decided to come back. It’s not quite a complete turn around from rain to some of the best powder of the winter, but snow showers in northern Vermont have brought the skiing back up to the realm of solidly mediocre*

*If you are currently in the PNW skiing deep snow in the sun, this rating of solidly mediocre may not be on quite the same scale.


Greg’s not complaining!
Continue reading Solidly Mediocre!


TR: More Sun on Ptarmigan Ridge

By: Allen
December 3, 2010 8:19 pm | Category: Full Trip Report, Skiing | Permalink

Click the image, or click right HERE to read more.

Logging 5000′ and many miles in 6 hours we had not crossed our tracks a single time. The circuit was not complete until we arrived back at my car. I find I am being drawn more and more to covering as much ground as possible and getting in real “tours.” The bowls and sub peaks of Ptarmigan ridge are a perfect place for this…


Next two weeks to feature winter weather…seriously (Updated).

December 1, 2010 10:47 am | Category: Weather | 18 Comments | Permalink

SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM FOR THE UPDATE

You know I was all set to discuss how excited I was for the upcoming period and then I ripped a hole right in the seat of my dress pants. Yep. Caught the pants on a piece of metal sticking out from a door frame and RIIIIIP. quarter sized whole right over the ol’ corn-hole. Awesome. So now I either stick it out all day and try not to stand up (oddly and sadly easy for most lawyers), buy some new pants at the men’s store downstairs (generally crap) or go home and change. I’m leaning towards the latter.

Somebody once said when I spilled Ketchup all over myself a few years ago “that’s a go-home kinda spill.” Now I’m thinking this is a “go home” kinda rip. I mean if you can have sick days why can’t you have “I ripped the ass out of my pants” or “the ketchup bottle blew up on me at lunch” days? Who gets sick for more than two days a year anymore?

What does this have to do with the weather? Nothing. Get over it. It’s my discussion and if you don’t like hearing about my new stay cool breezeway I just had custom installed in my pants then tough luck. It will prob. rain on your head.

Continue reading Next two weeks to feature winter weather…seriously (Updated).


  1. Older Stuff:
  3. 1
  4. ...
  5. 66
  6. 67
  7. 68
  8. 69
  9. 70
  10. 71
  11. 72
  12. ...
  13. 137
Stay in touch: Click here to follow us on Twitter. Click here to subscribe for updates to be delivered via RSS. Click here to become a fan on Facebook. Click here to read and share real time weather observations. Learn more over at the account. It's awesome. We promise!