New England Daily Snow

Short Term Forecast

We're coming off a solid spring weekend in New England. Saturday was a picture-perfect day with temperatures warming into the 70s at bases in central New England with solid 60s slope side. Mt. Washington even tied their daily record temperature at 48F. Clouds and a few showers did roll off the mountains on Saturday afternoon, but not before hundreds, if not 1000 (?) filled Tuckerman Ravine. Below is a screenshot from the Mt. Washington Avalanche Center Instagram page:

Sunday was a mix of clouds and sun depending on where you were. Western New England in Vermont and New Hampshire had cooler temperatures with good sunshine, while Maine had some clouds and fog hanging around the resorts through late morning and early afternoon. All in all, not a bad day to wrap the remainder of the season for many resorts. Here's what the skiing looked like over at Sugarloaf:

So who is still open? A few places. In Vermont we have Jay Peak, Stowe, Sugarbush, Killington, and Mount Snow. In New Hampshire we have Loon. In Maine we still have the big three Sugarloaf, Saddleback, and Sunday River. A few of these places will be good through this weekend and next weekend.

It's a mixed bag out there on Monday morning with sunshine across northern Vermont, some low stratus clouds near summit peaks across New Hampshire and Maine, and a thicker deck across southern Vermont and southern New Hampshire. Rain is trying to move into Central New England, but is failing into dry air. 

We should see improving conditions throughout the day across New England with the thicker clouds giving way to just lingering low clouds with breaks for sun. After a cool-ish start near 40F temperatures will reach the mid 40s at bases and remain slightly cooler slope side. The next few days are more or less carbon copies with slightly warmer temperatures: more clouds than sun, temperatures rising from 40s on Monday to 50s for Tuesday and Wednesday with a chance of rain showers come Thursday. Snow conditions will continue to slowly given way to dirt, grass, roots, and rocks.

Extended Forecast

Thursday brings our next shot at precipitation with rain showers developing late. Thursday night is interesting. A storm developing along the Coast, timed with the cooler overnight period and favorable "dynamics" might bring accumulating snow into interior Southern and Central New England --- especially in the hills. As of right now, this storm looks like it'll be too far south to drive any appreciable accumulating snow at our resorts that are still open. It should be cold enough on Friday (mid 30s) to at least see some snowflakes. Below is the ECMWF forecast for Thursday 8PM through Saturday 8AM; the GFS is largely similar.

The late-week storm will deliver wet snow, if any that won't stick around for long. The accumulating snows are in the 5-day forecast snow accumulation map; I've "grayed out" the resorts that are closed. It looks like the big winner(s) could be Mount Snow and Killington in south-central Vermont.

Once that storm clears out, Saturday and Sunday are looking decent, but the threat of rain showers in the mountains might linger with temperatures rebounding through the 40s on Saturday and near 50F on Sunday. More rain is likely with another weak storm early next week.

The models are currently liking our odds at a cooler and wetter patten as we move into the middle of next week. The recent ECMWF model has another storm moving across Southern New England on Tuesday night that could deliver a decent round of accumulating snow across central and Northern New England. No way is this a lock. Accumulating snow in late April (April 21st) is by no means rare, but it would be something to wake up Wednesday morning to ~3-6" of fresh snow and see it all melt away pretty quickly the next day (or two). For what it's worth, the GFS says no, the ECMWF/GFS ensembles are about ~30% on board. Something to keep an eye on.

That's all from me to start your week. I'll be back with an update (likely) on Wednesday.

-Dr. Jay | New England Daily Snow