Stars certainly aligned for vacation week – some windy days here and there, but fresh snowfall, plenty of sun, and warming temperatures to end the week made for a stellar holiday period, and vacation week for the ME/MA/northern NH districts.
A couple blogs back we spoke about the NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) starting to dip down to neutral, and that helped to solidify the snow for the storm system last week.
Signals have been pointing to a coastal system all week – but the model runs weren’t quite lining up with all the teleconnections and what we were seeing in the broad spectrum of the weather world. My discussions kept the chance of snow in there because I expected the cold to maneuver its way back into the area (for areas north of Hunter), which we are now just starting to see in the operational models.
Notice the near neutral look of the NAO & EPO (Eastern Pacific Oscillation) heading into the end of the week (and what about March 7-10? Let’s put that on the radar… for some fun storms).
We’ve been hard-pressed to go negative in these elements all winter, and have been getting snow events in positive stages of these teleconnections. This gives more credibility to near neutral conditions allowing for more snowfall than otherwise expected. It’s early for first call snowfalls, and Mount Snow/Okemo may still mix a little bit with sleet – but a 6″ snowfall is possible in VT with over 12″ possible in NH. If the track shifts even a little farther east, we may see more snow given better ratios. At this point, this is likely to be a wetter snowfall for most areas, aside from Stowe.
PA resorts continue as rain, and Hunter may see a couple inches before a turnover, unless the track continues to shift even more, but my hunch is we don’t have a strong enough drainage of cold air to keep Hunter all snow right now.
This could be the largest single snow event for the season for many resorts east of the Greens (and I’m not ruling out the Greens just yet, although I don’t see us beating Mount Snow’s 2’+ from earlier in the season). Will continue to update.