Is Jay Peak Resort Over-inflating Snowfall Totals???

[cdskier]

^you assume base=base. Wtf is base? Where is it measured? Surely you've been to a place that says '3ft base' where rocks are popping up.

Exactly...I was trying to make this same point several posts back. Who cares about the base depth values provided by the resorts? You're most likely not comparing apples to apples.

Jay's base very well could be deeper...just Jay and Stowe (or whoever else you're comparing against) are measuring differently. For all we know, the resorts aren't even officially measuring at the moment and just guestimating when it comes to base depth. The only number I think you can legitimately say is real is Stowe's Mt Mansfield snow stake depth.

I don't get why morris is so obsessed with whether or not the snowfall numbers are inflated. There could be an entire meteorology class dedicated just to mountain weather. It really is amazing what happens in the mountains. I've seen a "chance of flurries" turn into several inches in the mountains. I've seen it be snowing at Mt Ellen but not at Lincoln Peak even though they are only separated by a few miles.

Bottom line is Jay generally legitimately gets more snow than the mountains to their south. Are the numbers 100% accurate? Doubtful...but I wouldn't worry about them being inflated by a few inches here and there. Just go skiing and stop worrying about it.

 

[bdfreetuna]

This year the extra latitude and local climate of Jay have made more of a difference than usual. New England has seen several marginal/borderline mixed precip events that Jay has largely benefited from.

Furthermore they were benefiting from copious amounts of upslope snow in December and have had numerous surprise powder days over the course of the season. Anyone watching their situation closely (and look at their Facebook page.. trees are completely buried up there) has no reason to doubt they are the clear snowfall winners once again.

I'm no Jay Peak fluffer but when something is plain as day..

 

[thetrailboss]

Different type of question here. Have not yet been to Jay Peak to ski, but thinking of going later this March. But I have reservations about going...

Over the past several weeks, I've been tracking the snowfall totals over Jay, Smuggler's Notch and Stowe. I have a better than average understanding of "typical" snowfall in this area. With that in mind, Jay claims they have received 344 inches of snowfall this season to date. Yet only 28 miles to the south, both Smuggs and Stowe have received 241" and 258", respectively. Given the close distance between these resorts and well as similar mountain elevations, the average temperature difference must be 1*F at most...so that can't explain this huge 100" difference. All 3 resorts receive about the same wind speeds, so that also can't be a big difference either. I also find it odd that both Jay and Smuggs have almost exactly the same current snowbase depths, yet Jay has received over 100" more in snowfall to date (Stowe has a deeper base than Jay, with 86" less snowfall???). Shouldn't Jay's base be much deeper by now, given the copious amounts of snowfall they claim to have received??? Lastly, percentage-wise, Jay makes more snow than either of these two resorts.

Here is a quote from ZRankings.com website: "Ski area snowfall figures are occasionally white lies—marketing directors blow smoke with anecdotal information and inflated figures. More often legitimate data is collected from a choice snowfall area and marketed as representative of the entire mountain." If you go to Jay's website, their "snow reports" are very often sugarcoated and not very straightforward.

Can anyone provide assistance to help me figure this out?...Or am I correct??? Don't want to show up at this resort, tricked into thinking it was phenomenal, when it was average at best. Thanks!

You're just NOW realizing that they hype their snowfall totals? They've been doing that for decades.

 

[deadheadskier]

I'd say at this point in the season when the base is this deep, the most significant number to pay attention to is the amount of snow in the past 7 days. Pretty much everywhere in Northern New England has had four plus feet in the past week. Richard waving over who has it best right now is splitting pubic hairs. Everywhere is skiing amazing.

Sent from my XT1565 using AlpineZone mobile app

 

[dlague]

We were there during the 2013-2014 season in February when most places were getting nothing Jay Peak got 51 inches in three days so ...

Sent from my SM-G930P using AlpineZone mobile app

 

[SkiFanE]

It's all fake news people. The "Jay Cloud"? Fake. Those people at Jay are terrible, terrible people. The most terrible people ever. Stowe gets the best snow. Not only the best snow but the most. Everyone knows they get fluffier snow. You have never seen fluffy snow until you've been to Stowe. Sugarbush? C'mon folks, everyone knows their snow is not nearly as fluffy as Stowes. And don't forget the people, folks. The people of Stowe are the best and brightest and their skiing ability is top notch. I know people at Stowe, and let me tell you, no better people anywhere. Nicest people. They love me there. But Jay, horrible, don't listen to them.

 

[dmw]

It's all fake news people. The "Jay Cloud"? Fake. Those people at Jay are terrible, terrible people. The most terrible people ever. Stowe gets the best snow. Not only the best snow but the most. Everyone knows they get fluffier snow. You have never seen fluffy snow until you've been to Jay. Sugarbush? C'mon folks, everyone knows their snow is not nearly as fluffy as Stowes. And don't forget the people, folks. The people of Stowe are the best and brightest and their skiing ability is top notch. I know people at Stowe, and let me tell you, no better people anywhere. Nicest people. They love me there. But Jay, horrible, don't listen to them.

Far too coherent.

 

[VTKilarney]

Burke's website claims an average annual snowfall of 217 inches. Today's snow report email says that the most snow they have received in the past six years is 183 inches. Hmm....

 

[SkiingInABlueDream]

It's all fake news people. The "Jay Cloud"? Fake. Those people at Jay are terrible, terrible people. The most terrible people ever. Stowe gets the best snow. Not only the best snow but the most. Everyone knows they get fluffier snow. You have never seen fluffy snow until you've been to Jay. Sugarbush? C'mon folks, everyone knows their snow is not nearly as fluffy as Stowes. And don't forget the people, folks. The people of Stowe are the best and brightest and their skiing ability is top notch. I know people at Stowe, and let me tell you, no better people anywhere. Nicest people. They love me there. But Jay, horrible, don't listen to them.

I think you wrote jay instead of Stowe in one place, but otherwise well done

 

[SkiFanE]

I think you wrote jay instead of Stowe in one place, but otherwise well done

Oops fixed it.

 

[56fish]

they do get way more snow than smuggs or stowe for sure, jay is another world .

Snow melted here - go to Smuggs or Stowe :beer:

 

[gladerider]

just arrived here at Jay last night. it is insanely deep. you only believe in jay cloud when you actually come here.
it is still snowing. the roads were fine all the way up here.
but the last ten miles, it was coming down hard.

 

[wtcobb]

When you over-inflate a metric sh!t-ton, you still have a metric sh!t-ton.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Jay peek probably gets the most snow put I doubt it close to 100 inches more. Also Sugarbush somehow is 257" meanwhile Mad River has 124-197.

Seriously? That's amazing. LOL

I was a meteorology major in college at SUNY Oswego, NY ....... how can Jay Peak get lake effect snow when it is over 200 miles from Lake Ontario? There is no lake effect that far away.

I find this kind of surprising, because I was not a meteorology major in college, and truth be told I couldn't draw a picture of a pirate to save my life if I had too, but even I know that L.E.S. can be a "real", tangible, actual, physical, thing over 200 miles away.

Vermont does gets L.E.S., Plattekill and the Catskill mountains do get L.E.S. fairly regularly and that's probably 160 miles or so as the crow flies, and even I in northern New Jersey can get L.E.S. (it's pretty rare) if the wind direction and wind speed are just right, and that's about 215 miles.

You're just NOW realizing that they hype their snowfall totals? They've been doing that for decades.

QFT

Though to be fair, they've been better in the last decade'ish. I think most ski areas have, because the smart ones realize that with "teh internetz" it's very difficult to lie about snow assuming your customers arent complete morons. Camelback, for instance, clearly thinks their average customer has 14 teeth and vocalizes through grunts.

 

[cdskier]

Jay peek probably gets the most snow put I doubt it close to 100 inches more. Also Sugarbush somehow is 257" meanwhile Mad River has 124-197.

Seriously? That's amazing. LOL

It isn't that amazing.

Sugarbush says their snowfall is 106-267 base to summit. MRG is reporting 130-204 base to summit. You're not comparing apples to apples though. The summit of LP is approximately 300' higher than the summit of MRG. Early in the season there were quite a few days where SB was getting substantially more snow at the top than they were even just a few hundred feet in elevation down the mountain. Plus SB started tracking their snowfall totals before they even opened. I'm not sure whether MRG tracked some of that early November (late October?) snow that melted before the mountain opened. That could easily account for the difference as well. Overall I think the totals at the two resorts are pretty much in line with each other when you factor in the variables just mentioned.

 

[andrec10]

Ski resorts exaggerate snow totals?

I'm stunned.

Say it aint so!

 

[from_the_NEK]

Who cares! It is deep out there everywhere right now.

...taken somewhere in the NEK yesterday (not Jay Peak):

Backcountry NEK Style-12 by Tim_NEK, on Flickr

 

[Mildcat]

Don't really care about stats at this point. I was there for the first time Sun,Mon, and Tues and it was great.