The Official 12/9 Storm Discussion Thread

It definitely sounds like the storm is coming. Accuweather is showing more aggressive snowfalls all the way into Vermont with a tantalizing note that it may yet strengthen further. It doesn't look like a huge storm, but it does look like a good several inches which should be enough to push places like Mad River Glen over the top and help the other Vermont resorts bump up their trail counts in a hurry.

I'll be at Okemo on Saturday... I'm looking for 6-10 inches of light fluffy snow, Orange Atomic Stomp Tele's with Garmont Syner-g tele boots...

-Porter

Lookin' good! :beer:

Looks like Sundown of all places will be the big winner with 7-11"! If the roads are so bad tomorrow morning, that I can't make it to Concord/Sunapee, I'll hit the mighty Ski Sundown. Either way tomorrow is a powder day for me! Woohoo.
:beer:

Greg said:

Looks like Sundown of all places will be the big winner with 7-11"! If the roads are so bad tomorrow morning, that I can't make it to Concord/Sunapee, I'll hit the mighty Ski Sundown. Either way tomorrow is a powder day for me! Woohoo.
:beer:

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Good timing on your trip...enjoy.

Greg said:

Looks like Sundown of all places will be the big winner with 7-11"! If the roads are so bad tomorrow morning, that I can't make it to Concord/Sunapee, I'll hit the mighty Ski Sundown. Either way tomorrow is a powder day for me! Woohoo.
:beer:

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Nice huh?! I think I might skip work and just take my daughter to Sundown tomorrow (will almost certainly do so Saturday as well) - she's only 5 so we just stick to the Sunnyside Learning Area.

Catul said:

Nice huh?! I think I might skip work and just take my daughter to Sundown tomorrow (will almost certainly do so Saturday as well) - she's only 5 so we just stick to the Sunnyside Learning Area.

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Might be a little tricky getting some momentum over there in a foot of powder. Tomorrow may be a good day to bring her to the summit if she's ready for that. Tom's Treat is pretty mellow if she can handle loading/unloading one of the summit triples.

Just in from Mount Snow

Good afternoon everyone and thanks for checking
in with Mount Snow! This is Dan with your
afternoon snow report for Thursday, December 8th.

We’re waxing up our skis and boards because we’re
getting dumped on tonight and tomorrow with at
least 5-8” expected by Friday night! Some
forecasters are calling for as much as 10-16” in
the upper elevations, and Southern Vermont will
be hit the hardest, meaning Mount Snow will have
the most powder this weekend!

The timing couldn’t be any better, as we are in
the middle of huge trail expansions, with patrol
dropping the ropes on lots of favorites every
day. We’ll also open up our tubing park with 3
sessions for Saturday!

Your weather for Friday will hold lots of snow
all day long. As I mentioned, 5-8” is expected,
with possibly 10-16” falling in the upper
elevations. We’ll have temps in the base area
around 27 degrees and summit highs around 23,
making it the perfect winter day for skiing some
powder.

That does it for this edition of the snow report,
but before I go I’d like to remind you that with
all the snow on the way, you’ll have great skiing
and riding and great savings with Youth Pay Their
Age Day on Saturday. This is when the 18 and
under crowd can get priceless powder skiing for
just the cost of their age.

Thanks again for checking in with us here at Mount
Snow, be sure to stay tuned for updates on
mountsnow.com… this is Dan reminding you to wax
your planks, and get some rest tonight!

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Yeah. This storm is starting to look like it might not really do much of anything at the 'Loaf but that's OK. I'm hoping the conditions stay bad late enough to keep some people home this weekend.

HERE COME DA BLUE!

RossiSkier said:

HERE COME DA BLUE!

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Oh, now aint' that a pretty sight.
Watch the blue turn to white

I'll be at Mount Snow Saturday...$17 for me and maybe a foot of powder hmmm let me think...can't beat that!

Silver helmet, w/ lots of sticker, garmont synerG tele boots.

Greg said:

Might be a little tricky getting some momentum over there in a foot of powder. Tomorrow may be a good day to bring her to the summit if she's ready for that. Tom's Treat is pretty mellow if she can handle loading/unloading one of the summit triples.

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Lol, funny to be talking about a FOOT of powder at Ski Sundown (or anywhere south of VT, for that matter). Good idea on the summit, though I think that might be too long a run for her. She's pretty happy just dealing with riding up the lift on Sensation and coming down that or Big Bend. I need to get her to make some turns, she's not afraid of a little speed and I have to keep the leash on her to make sure she doesn't fly into someone

I'm seriously considering playing hooky tomorrow and heading over to Snow. Will be up at K Sat for the demos, too bad they likely won't get much from this system.

Now it's starting to look like an official storm thread.

The switch for Crappuweather's forecast since this morning makes Sunapee look good.

now only 2-4 for Long Island,,,,NOOOOOOO need more!!!

It's official. It's a powder day at the mighty Ski Sundown for me tomorrow... :lol:

Over to Wachusett tomorrow digustingly early before the lifts turn to steal freshies, then riding the lifts for a few hours, then heading up to Jay for the Tele Fest Saturday.
:beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer:

From Matt Noyes at NECN:

"Initial snow under warm advection may be on the light side the first half of Friday morning, but snow should fall in earnest from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. During this time frame, upward vertical motion goes through the roof as warm advection is maximized to the north of the new developing low and mid-level centers. New low should develop off Central NJ coastline early Friday and will be a fast mover as it moves NE and crosses almost directly over benchmark during the day Friday. While the system is indeed progressive, there are two tremendously impressive facets to it: one is the energy and the other is the moisture. The vorticity maximum moving east is closing off as it moves out of the Eastern Great Lakes, and while it is neutrally tilted, it's packing over 30 units of absolute vorticity, and this would be enough to generate whiteout conditions on its own! Add to this a steady stream of Pacific, Gulf and eventually Atlantic moisture, and 1-2" per hour snows are certainly well within reason from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. I still think the NAM is too wound up and too far north, but the GFS has been underdone on QPF amounts and has just now caught up in the 12Z run. No model is accurately placing the precipitation shield for Friday - a benchmark storm will produce the heaviest swath of precip either side of the MA Turnpike. Additionally, the cold and dry arctic air in place today is a huge factor. The ocean temps are in the mid 40's and this is something I've discussed at length in these discussions regarding previous events. I do believe the warm ocean is going to play a significant role again in this storm, but with varying results. Along the Cape and Islands this warm air should allow for a changeover to rain during the morning. Along the South Coast of Massachusetts, ratios should be quite low...especially from midday onward as the onshore flow really has a chance to do its dirty work and we mix with rain at immediate coastal locales. This will result in a coastal front developing inland about 20 miles from the South Coast of MA, and it could be a rather fierce front, too, with dewpoints this afternoon running in the single digits. This is some dense, dry, cold arctic air and it's going to be very difficult to dislodge the airmass, so instead I'd expect a strong coastal front to develop, with heavy snow falling on the cold side of this frontal boundary, especially given the lift already present that was described above. The combination of this low level forcing with upper level dynamic forcing could bring bands of snow exceeding 2" per hour to interior Eastern MA, and the atmosphere is unstable enough for moist slantwise convection to form in this strongly frontogenetic environment. The result should be a relatively short-lived storm, but also a very intense one, and that's my reasoning for going with 12"+ for most of interior Southern NewEng (see maps above). I went with this from the very first map early this morning, because I saw good agreement among the models on a solid 1" of QPF - and then I adjusted the placement based on the synoptic solution of a benchmark low discussed here the past couple of days. Truth be told, I wanted to go 12-18" but I knew the public would focus only on the 18, and when most areas were below that, the complaints would come rolling in. Again, the idea here is that the remarkable combo of low level and upper level dynamics should offset the short duration of the storm, and this could be remembered as one of the most intense, short storms to hit Southern New England in recent memory"

-Porter

"Again, the idea here is that the remarkable combo of low level and upper level dynamics should offset the short duration of the storm, and this could be remembered as one of the most intense, short storms to hit Southern New England in recent memory"



That's better than anything written in Penhouse Forum....