Thursday

Good morning, and Happy St. Patrick’s day to all the New Englanders of Irish descent! We had a band of showers pass through the region last night in association with a weak upper level disturbance. The last of these showers have recently propagated away from the coast of Maine, as seen on this radar imagery.

New England will be under mostly cloudy skies today with temperatures reaching the mid 50’s in northern New England and the mid 60’s in southern New England. With last night’s passing showers and very warm temperatures, it would be a poor day on any mountain that still has snow. Many social media reports were implying snow conditions so sticky that they were forced to leave the mountain. With the wet/warm weather we’ve had this week it’s safe to say the conditions would be even worse today.

Friday

Scattered showers late this afternoon and early this evening will transition to scattered snow showers for northern New England. This will be the product of  an upper level trough swooping down from Canada and advecting colder air into the region. While most of these snow showers would take place overnight tonight, there will be the potential for a few more snow showers in northern New England tomorrow morning/afternoon, particularly in the Jay Peak, Bretton Woods, Sunday  River, and Sugarloaf areas. As the system providing these showers will be weak, accumulations shouldn’t exceed more than an inch or 2 by Saturday morning.

 

Weekend

With the exception of northwesterly flow producing some upslope snow showers in the Jay Peak region on Saturday morning, the start to the weekend will be mostly dry as high pressure moves into the region. Hopefully if you’re going to the mountain Saturday morning, the small coating of snow from Friday will be enough to cover up the thinner areas on the slopes so you can get a few decent runs in on Saturday. Slushy/sticky snow shouldn’t be much of an issue as temperatures will be in the low to mid 30’s at the ski areas that still have snow. The thin surfaces could be icy in some spots in the morning if temperatures are cold enough towards the summits.

Sunday should be a bit warmer than Saturday, and could be the best day of the weekend to be at the mountains that still have snow coverage. Temperatures should be warm enough to minimize ice and cold enough to minimize the slush factor. Conditions will obviously be on the poor side, but as many have been doing the past few weeks, you may be able to make the best out of what is there and have a good time. If you’re thinking you might want to skip the mountain this weekend and put away the skis for the season, think again, because there is still the potential for some significant snow on Sunday night/Monday that could make for a few good days at the mountain next week.

Next Week

Yesterday we discussed the possibility of a coastal storm producing some heavy snow in New England. If you look at the discussion I posted yesterday, you can see the forecasted location of this storm for early Monday morning. I had noted that if the storm took that track, the heavy snow would occur more in southeastern MA and Maine as opposed to northern New England. Here is where the GFS 6Z run from today has the storm for that same time period.

If you compare it to the image from yesterday, it hasn’t changed all that much. The model is just anticipating it may arrive earlier than predicted yesterday. This would mean southeastern MA is still the target for the heaviest snowfall associated with this storm. Assuming the storm takes this track, many mountains in eastern New England could see anywhere from 2-4 inches of snow accumulation.

The snow from this storm is expected to continue from Sunday night into Monday morning for western ME. This would make Sunday River and Sugarloaf a nice place to be riding at on Monday. The northern NH ski areas (Bretton Woods, Wildcat, Attitash) would be a good bet as well. I wouldn’t expect significant improvements with only a few inches of snow, but it’ll certainly make conditions better than this weekend. As the storm moves out to sea, counterclockwise rotation around the low pressure center will produce northwesterly flow, which may produce some upslope snow showers in the Jay Peak area on Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon, there is the possibility of both rain/snow showers as well. Here’s the GFS 7 day snowfall map.

I’ll continue to track the coastal storm we’re expecting on Sunday night/Monday and let you know tomorrow if anything changes (let’s all hope the models start pushing it a bit to the west!) Have a great day, and Happy St. Patrick’s day to the Irish out there!

 

Rob Megnia Graduate Student, Plymouth State University/New England Daily Snow

P.S. If you haven’t done so already please take our end of the season survey. Thanks!

http://opsw.co/season-survey-2016