Shotmaker wrote:

Snowshoe was blowing snow last evening at 35 degrees. BTW the snow conditions were 9/10 - 10/10 from last Friday through noon today I guess that has something to do with the amount of people skiing here during those 5 days!

 Skier's left on Spruce was 10/10 all weekend. I found the lines to be much shorter than usual except at Soaring Eagle where kids racing on Widowmaker.

snowsmith wrote:

According to NWS, the La Niña pattern is supposed to start transitioning to a more ‘neutral’ pattern starting in March. And this pattern will change our weather over time. Not sure what a neutral pattern (I.e. not La Niña or El Niño) will have on our winter. I would hope it can only get better.

 I fully expect lousy Smarch weather and the one accumulating storm in the DC area in about 5 or 6 weeks. We had a fair amount of March snowfall in the area between 2013 and 2018.

Fingers crossed for a March snow storm 🫰

35 degrees I doubt they are making snow, you can but the wet bulb needs to be 24. If they are it is low quality. The best temps are 28 and below. 

Of course snowshoe is great, Timberline too. They invested the money and their base elevation is the 3K level, a huge advantage, they can blow huge quantities of snow for long periods, where other resorts can’t even turn the guns on. 

SeniorSki wrote:

Fingers crossed for a March snow storm 🫰

35 degrees I doubt they are making snow, you can but the wet bulb needs to be 24. If they are it is low quality. The best temps are 28 and below. 

The temperature may have been off but that is what Snowshoe was reporting. They report the temperature from the Weather Underground station in the Village.  It wasn’t a humid evening so the wet bulb was where it needed to be to get things underway. Everything is programmed and computer synched so at least on top of the mountain they were putting down great snow.

That would be a bit of data crunching.

- The issue this season is high temps. sustained. 

- Snowmaking avg days a season (from my brain) is about 15 days out of 100. local 

   Stays cold and the trails are fine with light snowmaking and grooming.

it is not TEMPS but humidity + temps and wet bulb for making snow.

I will get in 15 to 20 visits and I cannot say a bad season just a bit tough to get the best days. 

Positive spin the milder temps cut our heating bills.

NAO North Atlantic oscillation 

Flat- except for the COL in Dec. NAO negative holds the cold longer in the east

AO Arctic Oscillation - when the cold air in the Arctic gets released to come down to the  USA 48

These are the indicators I use. on top of Climate models, 2 weeks forward looks, etc.

Liberty from last Thurs to Tues doubled the base on existing trails.  All they can do. 

I just adjust my planning, Warm wax, Zardoz Base Boost, Structure, rid the shade / follow the sun.

Lastly - remember your best day ever. There may be many. 

Be Happy

Zardog

Bring on another Miracle March like 2013 and 2018! 

snapdragon wrote:

i think Zardog has provided an excellent synopsis of the season so far...the epic windows have been opened at tline a lot this year even with low natural snow...a bit of the warm...then a bit of the cold...the queen of the potomac highlands is reslathered in two days...stay stoked...yew!

Nice work. I did some digging into the National Weather Service, found a site that looked like it will give you temps for each year in a given area. I don’t have the computer skills to figure it out. I still do math with paper and pencil, ha. From my aging brain it seems that in the 70’s through 90’s the winters seemed to be more uniform, steady temps. Long periods of time when temps stayed at or just below freezing. Not the big jumps too way below and way above normal. Seems like these days we have drastic changes in temperature fluctuations. I definitely could be all wrong. I believe we did have a year in 72/73 that had no snow, could be because of no precipitation was available. 

Looks like the southern Appalachian’s are going to get blasted, Sugar will be dancing. You know I just jinxed it. 

Come on March blizzard, February still looks bad. Hope the local resorts can hang on. 

While any storm is fun and interesting...

In March, ...the temps usually warm up quick dissolving any gains quickly.  

And wet snow is not fun to ski/board in until it has been groomed. 

Id like to see ONE powder day in this area...ONE

Polar vortex to return in March with a vengeance.

A 'sudden stratospheric warming' is about to occur over the North Pole - The Washington Post