Lake Effect in Full Effect

12-3-16
Sugarbush

Lake effect squalls piled up overnight Friday night all along the Green Mountain spine and continued for most of the day today.

1st day out for the year and I was thinking of hitting SVT today but after watching the squalls on doppler all day Friday I knew the goods were gonna be up north.

Bush only had upper mountain trails going today but there was definitely 9-10" fresh and probably 2-3 more dropped by the time I left early afternoon. My first two runs on Jester were epic. Did not get fresh tracks the whole run but I did manage to claim some on entire pitches. Snow was smooth and fast, almost beady as opposed to fluffy. Great base builder. Still, incredibly surfable and tons of fun.

Some pics:





Yes even the trees off of Spillsville were an option, but w extreme caution.

After seeing pics from Stowe and Jay today I think they made out even better. Tomorrow is going to be awesome, get out there!


Edit: Moderators I meant to put this in trip reports can someone move this please. Ty

This is really cool trip! Thanx for it

Snow is snow but is this really "Lake effect" snow? Which lake?
After living in Western NY for about 15 years, I came to think of "lake effect" snow fall being limited only to the areas off Lake Erie and Ontario. I don't think that snows that originated with the Great Lakes moisture reached Vermont.
As to Lake Champlain, it seems too narrow for the winds to pick up much moisture...

The great lakes provide moisture + precip for the entire AlpineZone relevant region, although the primary deposit is near the actual lake as you mentioned.

I'm not a met so I don't know if VT / NH / Maine upslope snow counts as Lake Effect, but that's where a lot of the moisture is coming from when there isn't otherwise an interfering weather system.

Definitely dumps it close to the lakes.

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