Weather Log 2023-2024

[b632]

Well there is ALOT MORE than 8… I’m guessing 20??

[Glade Monkey]

Well there is ALOT MORE than 8… I’m guessing 20??

NICE!
I have to believe what they report and late yesterday they put up 14” and now they have 23” so I’m putting 14 yesterday and 9 today. Plus #3T to the rescue!

[Glade Monkey]

Brackett 100% open & West Mountain chair on the schedule - great Saturday to be a Loafer!

[Glade Monkey]

Bump - only 15 days left in the season & 2 events left on the calendar: pond skimming today and passholder BBQ tomorrow

[Alpiner]

I think this season's tally is done - no more snow of any significance until next season. At 171" this is the 2nd snowiest season in the spreadsheet since 2020's 173" when we couldn't even enjoy the record spring. This was also the snowiest season post-Christmas.

But it didn't feel like it. With basically no snow from January 18th to March 9, conditions in the heart of winter sucked. I much preferred last year's distribution. The 2 feet in April this year melted quickly. The last 2 feet in March were erased 4 days later by rain and warmth.

We better have a beautiful warm dry summer. The only thing that gave me hope during last summer's monsoons was that it would mean a big snow year.

Wah.

[High Ball]

I think this season's tally is done - no more snow of any significance until next season. At 171" this is the 2nd snowiest season in the spreadsheet since 2020's 173" when we couldn't even enjoy the record spring. This was also the snowiest season post-Christmas.

But it didn't feel like it. With basically no snow from January 18th to March 9, conditions in the heart of winter sucked. I much preferred last year's distribution. The 2 feet in April this year melted quickly. The last 2 feet in March were erased 4 days later by rain and warmth.

We better have a beautiful warm dry summer. The only thing that gave me hope during last summer's monsoons was that it would mean a big snow year.

Wah.

Very good wrap up. Seems like the seasons are shifting. Remember when June was part of summer ? An interesting metric, which of course will never be published, would be the volume of machine blown snow. Any Eastern ski area that hasn't invested heavily in snowmaking has a pretty dim future, imo.

[bigelow]

I think this season's tally is done - no more snow of any significance until next season. At 171" this is the 2nd snowiest season in the spreadsheet since 2020's 173" when we couldn't even enjoy the record spring. This was also the snowiest season post-Christmas.

But it didn't feel like it. With basically no snow from January 18th to March 9, conditions in the heart of winter sucked. I much preferred last year's distribution. The 2 feet in April this year melted quickly. The last 2 feet in March were erased 4 days later by rain and warmth.

We better have a beautiful warm dry summer. The only thing that gave me hope during last summer's monsoons was that it would mean a big snow year.

Wah.

Very good wrap up. Seems like the seasons are shifting. Remember when June was part of summer ? An interesting metric, which of course will never be published, would be the volume of machine blown snow. Any Eastern ski area that hasn't invested heavily in snowmaking has a pretty dim future, imo.

It ain't about how much snow you get these days. Its all about how often it rains....which seems to be pretty frequent. It only takes 30 min of rain to completely transform greatness to suck.
Snomaking investment is where its at on the East coast....and those with the horsepower are only getting more expensive and crowded

[chriscarleton]

I think it would be interesting to revisit the approach to measuring snow.

I'm fairly sure that all snowfall is measured at the base and what happens at the base and above 2k' are two very different things on a frequent basis. Not only is there usually quite a bit more snow up on the mountain for almost every snowfall, but there is a lot of snow that went completely unreported that skied wonderfully. Stowe has the High Road Plot, Sugarbush has a mid mtn plot, out west it's basically the standard, why not have a mid/upper mtn snow plot at the loaf? I think we would all be pleasantly surprised with the real snowfall numbers for the upper mountain. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, between increased upper mountain snowfall and unreported snowfall, this weather log is missing about 20% of the snow that actually falls on the upper mtn.

[Alpiner]

I think it would be interesting to revisit the approach to measuring snow.

I'm fairly sure that all snowfall is measured at the base and what happens at the base and above 2k' are two very different things on a frequent basis. Not only is there usually quite a bit more snow up on the mountain for almost every snowfall, but there is a lot of snow that went completely unreported that skied wonderfully. Stowe has the High Road Plot, Sugarbush has a mid mtn plot, out west it's basically the standard, why not have a mid/upper mtn snow plot at the loaf? I think we would all be pleasantly surprised with the real snowfall numbers for the upper mountain. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, between increased upper mountain snowfall and unreported snowfall, this weather log is missing about 20% of the snow that actually falls on the upper mtn.

Yes. I would think the mountain would jump at this. There were a number of times this year when the mountain reported like 2" and it skied more like 4-5" on the upper terrain.

[Glade Monkey]

I think it would be interesting to revisit the approach to measuring snow.

I'm fairly sure that all snowfall is measured at the base and what happens at the base and above 2k' are two very different things on a frequent basis. Not only is there usually quite a bit more snow up on the mountain for almost every snowfall, but there is a lot of snow that went completely unreported that skied wonderfully. Stowe has the High Road Plot, Sugarbush has a mid mtn plot, out west it's basically the standard, why not have a mid/upper mtn snow plot at the loaf? I think we would all be pleasantly surprised with the real snowfall numbers for the upper mountain. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, between increased upper mountain snowfall and unreported snowfall, this weather log is missing about 20% of the snow that actually falls on the upper mtn.

Yes. I would think the mountain would jump at this. There were a number of times this year when the mountain reported like 2" and it skied more like 4-5" on the upper terrain.

171" reported plus 20% would get them back above the "Ten Year Average 200" snowfall"
BTW - I added some additional stats at the bottom of each column such as total number of trail-day snowmaking (298) and percentage of days with a TImberline hold (37%)

[High Ball]

I think it would be interesting to revisit the approach to measuring snow.

I'm fairly sure that all snowfall is measured at the base and what happens at the base and above 2k' are two very different things on a frequent basis. Not only is there usually quite a bit more snow up on the mountain for almost every snowfall, but there is a lot of snow that went completely unreported that skied wonderfully. Stowe has the High Road Plot, Sugarbush has a mid mtn plot, out west it's basically the standard, why not have a mid/upper mtn snow plot at the loaf? I think we would all be pleasantly surprised with the real snowfall numbers for the upper mountain. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, between increased upper mountain snowfall and unreported snowfall, this weather log is missing about 20% of the snow that actually falls on the upper mtn.

Yes. I would think the mountain would jump at this. There were a number of times this year when the mountain reported like 2" and it skied more like 4-5" on the upper terrain.

171" reported plus 20% would get them back above the "Ten Year Average 200" snowfall"
BTW - I added some additional stats at the bottom of each column such as total number of trail-day snowmaking (298) and percentage of days with a TImberline hold (37%)

How did you treat the days that Timberline started on hold but opened late morning/ early afternoon ? This happens fairly frequently.

[High Ball]

I think it would be interesting to revisit the approach to measuring snow.

I'm fairly sure that all snowfall is measured at the base and what happens at the base and above 2k' are two very different things on a frequent basis. Not only is there usually quite a bit more snow up on the mountain for almost every snowfall, but there is a lot of snow that went completely unreported that skied wonderfully. Stowe has the High Road Plot, Sugarbush has a mid mtn plot, out west it's basically the standard, why not have a mid/upper mtn snow plot at the loaf? I think we would all be pleasantly surprised with the real snowfall numbers for the upper mountain. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, between increased upper mountain snowfall and unreported snowfall, this weather log is missing about 20% of the snow that actually falls on the upper mtn.

Yes. I would think the mountain would jump at this. There were a number of times this year when the mountain reported like 2" and it skied more like 4-5" on the upper terrain.

Yep.....a refinement of this would be to report the actual elevation where the plot was taken.

[Glade Monkey]

How did you treat the days that Timberline started on hold but opened late morning/ early afternoon ? This happens fairly frequently.

Kept it simple - A hold is a hold is a hold. Can only get one per day even if it happens more than that - whether a lift opened late had a hold in the middle of the day or closed early.

[WrathOfAramark]

I think it would be interesting to revisit the approach to measuring snow.

I'm fairly sure that all snowfall is measured at the base and what happens at the base and above 2k' are two very different things on a frequent basis. Not only is there usually quite a bit more snow up on the mountain for almost every snowfall, but there is a lot of snow that went completely unreported that skied wonderfully. Stowe has the High Road Plot, Sugarbush has a mid mtn plot, out west it's basically the standard, why not have a mid/upper mtn snow plot at the loaf? I think we would all be pleasantly surprised with the real snowfall numbers for the upper mountain. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that, between increased upper mountain snowfall and unreported snowfall, this weather log is missing about 20% of the snow that actually falls on the upper mtn.

I'm more interested in consistency for snowfall measurement. If the mountain measures at the base every time from a somewhat wind protected area I'll get used to knowing that there's a good chance there's better conditions than ' 3" ' reported unless it's been blowing 40+ mph. In the past when they went out and took readings in multiple spots and tried to give a range it was haphazard at best and misleading pretty often. Finding a 2' windblown pile on edge of Tote Road and glare ice in the middle of Chicken Pitch is an extreme, but it happens often enough to be a concern about where the measurements are taking place.