Potential New Year's blizzard to blanket New England mountains

Likewise in Franconia @1200'. I'm guessing 16-18" since Saturday morning, and it's still coming down steadily on the west side of the Franconias. Light fluffy snow, should be easy to clear and fun to play in.

Cannon reports 22" in the last 24 hours, 25" in the last 3 days.

This was an odd storm, some of the places I thought would get the most snow, didn't. According the Hermit Lake, they only got a little over 8 inches last night, while From Crawford Notch to Franconia and Bethlehem got 16-30. The snow was squeezed into some places and dried out over others. I just got a report that Conway who was supposed to get over 12 inches last night only got 1 inch? Very strange storm, but has left a lot of snow in some places, and it will continue to add up off and on all week in the mountains from upslope.

-Mattl

DrewKnight said:

Steady, light snow in Waterville Valley all day... 3-4, maybe even 5-6" total accumulation. But no big dumping. Still, conditions are improving. Latest NWS forecast calls for light to moderate accumulations tonight and tomorrow. The wind has been picking up this evening, but not holding out too much hope for a major event. Sigh.

Welcome back (soon?), Grouseking!

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Yeah pretty soon. Probably in the next 7-10 days. It takes awhile to pack, but luckily I won't have to clean up the entire apartment since it isnt mine.


As for the storm, what has surprised me was that Burlington VT got over 2 feet. I did not see that coming.

Burlington and the Champlain valley were in a locally heavy area that was caused by some sort of warmer air being trapper. Burlington talked about it some. One of the only times you will see Burlington get 3 times as much snow in a storm as Jay Peak who only got 7 inches.

-Mattl

I just cleaned off my driveway, and can confirm that Burlington VT got 24 inches of the fluffiest snow i have ever seen.

Wow, that is strange! Burlington hardly ever gets more snow than we do down here in Waterbury. We are just 25 miles down I89 and I don't think we have even reached 6 inches yet from this storm. I might have to head to Burlington to ski the bike path.

After doing Cannon on Saturday, I hit the road from the ski area about 3:30 and almost immediately came upon a three-car southbound in the notch. Not much snow on the road, but the apparently clear pavement was actually black ice. No one seriously hurt, though an ambulance showed up in short order and a couple shaken-looking women were escorted to it.

They were able get the cars off into the breakdown lane fairly quickly and I got rolling again. By Plymouth the road was absolutely clear and even dry in places. Got sloppy again south of Concord.

Mattl said:

This was an odd storm, some of the places I thought would get the most snow, didn't. According the Hermit Lake, they only got a little over 8 inches last night, while From Crawford Notch to Franconia and Bethlehem got 16-30. The snow was squeezed into some places and dried out over others. I just got a report that Conway who was supposed to get over 12 inches last night only got 1 inch? Very strange storm, but has left a lot of snow in some places, and it will continue to add up off and on all week in the mountains from upslope.

-Mattl

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I agree this was a strange storm. It snowed almost constantly from Thursday evening through Saturday in Conway, but we only got 4-5 inches of snow. We expected to get hammered overnight, but when we woke up this morning there was no new snow at all. Driving home on Route 16 this afternoon was a bit of an adventure, however. More than a few cars off the road between Ossippee and Rochester.

If I lived in Conway, I would be mad, seeing how essentially up the road in Crawford Notch they got 2 feet..Burlington just broke it's all time greatest snow storm with this at 33 inches so far, with more still falling. The snow is some of the lightest we ever get, so skiing is going to be amazing this week. Someone please post pics from Bethlehem to Zealand somewhere.

-Mattl

Still snowing on the west side of the Franconias . . .yawn . . .but I swore of the snow blower for this 2010 and am getting a good workout with the shovel.

Twin Mountain had 18-24" of light, champagne powder this morning, and it kept snowing lightly all day. The ski conditions at Bretton were epic. Wow.

Marley and I are going trail breaking, now I just need to figure out where to go (besides there)!

Ditto the "strange storm" comments... maybe six inches of new snow in Waterville Valley after almost three days of light, steady snow (but only a couple of bands of heavy the whole time). Things blew around a LOT, though, so skiing at WV yesterday was an exercise in wild inconsistency, with the lee side of some trails with nice, deep, fluff (busted to crud quickly of course), and the exposed side wind-polished to a high slippery gloss.

I was amazed when MichaelJ messaged me to say they had deep pow at Bretton Woods... but I have now seen video proof.

Up to 2' in SoVT. Skied Magic on Saturday and Bromley Sunday - best snow I have ever seen at Bromley.

Chugach001 said:

Skied Magic on Saturday.

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Magic's still holding on? They were having major lift issues last year. How was the mountain on Saturday?

I've skied there on good snow years and always enjoyed it.

Heavy snow showers this afternoon; it's never over 'til it's over.

Yeah the snow showers will continue pretty much all week in the mountains.

Mattl said:

Yeah the snow showers will continue pretty much all week in the mountains.

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How do you know that?

Because the Mt Washington observatory says so!

Spencer, in response to your earlier post, I am not a professional meteorologist. I have taken a number of college courses, and it is a major hobby of mine. When I post regarding storms, I always try to state what professionals are forecasting, not my personal opinions. I check 4 major weather models, the three Boston stations, WMUR, the Mt. Washington Obs site, and a few others, and then try to form my own opinion. I share my opinions with family and friends, but don't post it on the internet. Whenever possible, I do provide links to the professional sites.

I hope that no one is using these posts as there only weather source. That being said, the info that is posted is generally pretty usefull.

I contribute to these threads as I can not count the times that I have run into experienced hikers on the trails and say something like, "Good thing were getting a foot of snow tonight", only to hear in reply "Oh, is going to snow?"

Besides, I like computers, predictive modeling, and talking about the weather!

Look at the Nation Weather Service forecast for Berlin, NH. A chance of snow showers almost everyday. It wont always add up to a lot, but it will be there.