Snow accumulations reporting - Is someone lying?

[billski]

I received an email from a friend, who posits that Stowe is lying about amount of snow received.

Here is what he said

• Stowe claims “we have picked up 4" at the base and 8" at the summit through noontime” and that current conditions are “powder/packed powder.”
• Smugglers reports just 3” of new snow, and that current conditions are “packed powder/machine groomed.”
• Mad River says, as of 2:30 this afternoon, “we picked up a couple of inches of wet snow.”
• Sugarbush says, as of 1:45 this afternoon, there is the “potential for a couple inches by tomorrow morning.”

My initial reaction is "upslope". Thanks to some work previously done on this forum, the facing sides are as follows:

Smuggler's Notch: North, North-West

Jay Peak: North-East

Stowe: East, North-East, South

Sugarbush: North-East

Mad River Glen: North-East, East, South-East In my mind, Sugarbush and MRG are in a separate weather system and cannot be compared to the others. If that's true, Stowe is the only one with an East orientation. He argues that Stowe and Smuggs are on the same mountain and should have similar peak accumulations. Hmm. The prevaling winds over the past 24 hours have been: from the S-SW see: http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KMVL.html If in fact the winds were from the SW, would there be any upslope and if so where. If it's on the W side, and no trails are extant... penny for your skis. Er, uh thoughts..

 

[St. Bear]

I remember reading somewhere that Stowe's actual snowfall is much closer to 250" than 300" per year, but damned if I remember where I saw that.

 

[WinnChill]

Whether or not any manipulation of snow accumulation occurs, it depends on where they measure. If most are measuring near the base/midslope, you could see your normal variations with upslope favoring that particular slope. Upslope snows fall on the summit too but then tends to "shadow" on the downslope side. Temperature/dewpoint changes with height can affect the "fluff factor". Many times winds vary with height, such as today, when surface winds are SW but aloft around 3,4, 5000 ft they start veering W/NW, so they could get some of that upslope blowing over the top onto some of their upper slopes. Then it depends on if they measure once or the proper way, to average out several measurements. Just a few thoughts.

 

[riverc0il]

8" at the summit is in line with what LH at FIS was predicting, IIRC.

 

[octopus]

i think snow totals and drive times are completely ridiculous from ski resorts. 3.5 hrs from boston to sugarloaf? ok, maybe at 100 the whole way

 

[Huck_It_Baby]

There is something to be said about Stowe's orientation and the Notch. Notches tend have their own little weather that is different than just a few miles away.

Smuggs and Stowe aren't really on the same Mountain. Mt. Mansfield (Stowe) is separate from Smuggs. Smuggs and Stowe share Spruce/Sterling peak. Madonna (Smuggs) is a different peak at Smuggs entirely from Stowe or Spruce/Sterling.

On Sunday I was at Smuggs and found a Huge difference in conditions from Madonna and Sterling with sterling being much better. On Saturday I was at Stowe and found it to be FAR better than Smuggs. More base in the trees and deeper powder.

I think that there is a lot of variation that is dependent on wind, aspect, upslope, etc. There was also a big difference in temp from base to summit elevation today. Warm in the valleys and colder at summits. 37 at my house near Lake Champlain in Colchester but still below freezing at summits.

I wake up and spend every morning evaluating weather and snow conditions. Do resorts maybe push the limits of their reporting? Of course sometimes but I believe there was significant snow fall at Stowe today.

 

[fbrissette]

i think snow totals and drive times are completely ridiculous from ski resorts. 3.5 hrs from boston to sugarloaf? ok, maybe at 100 the whole way

As long as marketing is in charge of the numbers, you know you're getting very optimistic snow totals and drive times.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AlpineZone mobile app

 

[billski]

As long as marketing is in charge of the numbers, you know you're getting very optimistic snow totals and drive times.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using AlpineZone mobile app

One word:

Powderfreak

 

[Huck_It_Baby]

You can always turn to NOAA for daily charts:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/html/climatemaps/


Looks like Jay got a nice helping of snow last night!

 

[fbrissette]

You can always turn to NOAA for daily charts:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/html/climatemaps/


Looks like Jay got a nice helping of snow last night!

They are my main source of information. Their forecast was pretty accurate as of noon yesterday with respect to Jay My wife is skiing this morning and it is a legit 12 inches.

 

[fbrissette]

You can always turn to NOAA for daily charts:

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/btv/html/climatemaps/


Looks like Jay got a nice helping of snow last night!

To those that doubt the Jay cloud. That's in inches of liquid precip.

 

[andyzee]

Resorts stretching the truth in snow reporting, nah, that doesn't happen.

:razz:
​

 

[Gnarcissaro]

Jay has been blower and so sick the last two days. 37" in the last week, 18" last 24hrs. Get up there.

 

[polski]

I gotta say I trust Stowe's reporting of snow accumulation. It's done by Powderfreak (Scott B.) who used to post here and on SKIVT-L occasionally but now seems to hang out mostly at the weather geek board americanwx.com. Scott clearly knows his meteorology and has a rigorous/standardized method for measuring snowfall at several sites at different elevations on the mountain. Often at americanwx he'll post photos of his measurement stakes, radar images of local snowfall events as they're happening, etc.

I also think it is uninformed to posit that because Smuggs didn't report as much snow, Stowe must be lying. The most recent event came on particularly strong W (or maybe NW, I forget) winds without a blocking flow and thus the terrain-induced snow fell mostly on the eastern side of the spine. I'm strictly an amateur myself but there's a metric called the Froude number that NWS-BTV sometimes notes in its forecast discussions; roughly speaking you can expect upslope in the Greens to favor west-facing slopes if this number is < 1.0, east-facing slopes if > 1.0. I forget exactly what the Froude number was today but I read somewhere on americanwx it was > 1. Early last week there was an upslope event where the Froude number was something like 0.4 and Smuggs got 6-10" of blower and Stowe reported maybe a third of that. From trip reports and photos I saw, Smuggs wasn't lying then and Stowe isn't lying now.

 

[polski]

Resorts stretching the truth in snow reporting, nah, that doesn't happen.

​

In a season like this one the sin I think some resorts are prone to committing is focusing on new snowfall and ignoring how old glacial surfaces or crusts or whatever might come into play regardless. For example, when Smuggs got that 6-10" of upslope blower early last week, only people who had been paying close attention to the conditons all along would know there was a good chance skiers would be bottoming out on a harsh old rained-on-and-frozen-solid surface. I read a lot of reports/complaints about that after the fact. In contrast I understand the upslope that fell mainly from 89 north yesterday into early today had greater density to it, better for base-building without being too wet/sticky. Details like that can matter a lot but few areas (MRG being one exception) tend to get into that kind of thing in their condition reports. Wind can be another issue with varying degrees of forthrightness until there's a wind hold.

 

[Huck_It_Baby]

I gotta say I trust Stowe's reporting of snow accumulation. It's done by Powderfreak (Scott B.) who used to post here and on SKIVT-L occasionally but now seems to hang out mostly at the weather geek board americanwx.com. Scott clearly knows his meteorology and has a rigorous/standardized method for measuring snowfall at several sites at different elevations on the mountain. Often at americanwx he'll post photos of his measurement stakes, radar images of local snowfall events as they're happening, etc.

I also think it is uninformed to posit that because Smuggs didn't report as much snow, Stowe must be lying. The most recent event came on particularly strong W (or maybe NW, I forget) winds without a blocking flow and thus the terrain-induced snow fell mostly on the eastern side of the spine. I'm strictly an amateur myself but there's a metric called the Froude number that NWS-BTV sometimes notes in its forecast discussions; roughly speaking you can expect upslope in the Greens to favor west-facing slopes if this number is < 1.0, east-facing slopes if > 1.0. I forget exactly what the Froude number was today but I read somewhere on americanwx it was > 1. Early last week there was an upslope event where the Froude number was something like 0.4 and Smuggs got 6-10" of blower and Stowe reported maybe a third of that. From trip reports and photos I saw, Smuggs wasn't lying then and Stowe isn't lying now.

Great post!

 

[tomcat]

I was shocked when I was at Jay the other day. The forecast was for dusting -2". There was at least four at the mountain when the lifts started and it never stopped, probaly about 10 around my car when I left about 3PM. I don't know what it is but I am a believer in the Jay effect now.

 

[bigbog]

Local weather forcasts Thursday and Friday just mentioned the winds as being something in addition to a little more snow...:-o.
Felt like Class/Level 1 hurricane all weekend...and still very windy through today. Much the same as AZ/Loaf weekend...but without the moisture/snow(sigh). The temps aren't moving up at all.....

 

[billski]

I was shocked when I was at Jay the other day. The forecast was for dusting -2". There was at least four at the mountain when the lifts started and it never stopped, probaly about 10 around my car when I left about 3PM. I don't know what it is but I am a believer in the Jay effect now.

That's the "Jay Cloud". You can always count on it.

 

[NESnow&Golf]

SO Many factors i don't understand go into this... wind all sorts off stuff i was there this weekend in question and they got what they reported mabye more