Weather by Tim Kelley

Updated April 21st, 2023

And That's A Wrap for TK! 

Friday April 21, 2023 - Day 141 of lift served skiing and riding here at Jay Peak Resort. But even before Day 1, we had a couple feet top to bottom Powder before Thanksgiving. So for some of you it's about Day 151. Plus a few midweek early days and those two scary-cold ones in January, too. Add them to the tally.

It's been herky-jerky for sure - but I'll give it about an 8 out 10 for fun times this season. Every time we were ready to throw in the towel because of warm & wet - or mild and dry, Mother Nature came through with her happy spirit and redeemed our Jay Spirit with bounties of new snow. 351 inches - just shy of THIRTY FEET - of snow this season is pretty pretty pretty good. Better than most of the rest in the east. And we are not done counting - there is more snow in the forecast.

First things first. It's Friday so there must be a warm front around. Yup, after a cold week and a little new snow, we are suddenly near 60° again, with a good amount of blue sky, what a day! There were two snow storms from Colorado to Utah this week (what's new, right?). The second one, a weakening low pressure system is moving only slowly, and pretty much due north in Ontario as of the writing. There is a new north Atlantic Blocking pattern keeping that low from moving east. But just as quickly as we warm up with the southerly flow in front of that low, we will have a cold front coming at us, from the southwest, Sunday. It's never easy, is it? I think we had one easy forecast, about two weeks ago. 

The challenging parts of this forecast are multi-pronged.

• How warm and windy Saturday, and will we need sunscreen for our Tailgate Party?
• When does it start raining?
• When does it start snowing?
• How much snow might we get?

With high pressure building to our east Saturday and low pressure to our west getting closer, we will have a significant pressure gradient developing. So what? So, wind! From the south gusting past 30 mph Saturday afternoon. There will be rain approaching from the west but it should hold off for most of the day. In fact, that gusty wind may break up the clouds we start the day with, and yes sunscreen is likely necessary in the afternoon with highs still near 60°. It looks like a nice - windy - afternoon.

On my last write up, we talked about rain perhaps holding off for Sunday, that no longer is the case. A narrow band of tropically infused non-snow hydrometeors seems a lock for Sunday. As the day goes on those hydrometeors will be getting colder, thanks to a Sunday morning FroPa. A 'FroPa' is weatherologist jargon for 'Cold Front.’ Morning temperatures in the 40s will glide down into the 30s with less windy air, starting to come around from the southeast down on at the base, but from the southwest at the summit. Yes, colder air is coming from the southwest, this has been happening quite often this year. By dinner time or so, we likely have crystalline hydrometeors at the Top of The Tram, yes snow up top is possible by Sunday sunset. But it's a very wet day. 

Then like what we just saw this week, we have an upper level cool pool stalling overhead with plenty of instability, clouds, and more snow showers up top mixed with raindrops down low. There is no organized storm that is obvious at this time, but keep an eye on The Gulf of Maine for that to possibly change. There are hints we may get an organized surface low pressure to form next week, that could really up the ante for possible significant snowfall. Either way, it looks like a Jay Cloud should kick in with at least a few inches in the Monday to Wednesday time frame again.

After that we likely see our regularly scheduled warm front, followed by a cold front, late next week and next weekend may end up wet and white once again. April is upside down this season. It started warm and is getting colder as May nears.

The way way out forecast is for an even colder pool of air and possible heavy duty spring snow the first week of May. Why not!

Our herky-jerky season is not done yet!

It's just the last TK update until about next Thanksgiving or so.

As always, a lot of love for this happy space, thank you for having me, our 10th year together on these pages.

Guess we’ll have to make it 11 in the fall.

SeaYa At The Shore!

TK