The Friday Fantasy Photo Blog

In the first half of March the season came to a make-or-break point.  While skiers were already far ahead of the previous winter when the season was all but done by the Ides of March, there was really nothing stellar about the 2012-13 season. Yet.

On March 12, yet another warm system brought a hard bring rain as far north as Whiteface. But optimistic skiers held on to hope as another storm forecast for early the following week looked like it might be cold or at least cold enough.

On March 18 — a Sunday night — the storm arrived in the Catskills bringing snow that evening and then rain the following morning. But by midday on Monday even in New York’s southern mountains the precipitation turned back to something white and left the few who had ventured out smiling.

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After NEMO, a nice series of small snowfalls accumulated and the skiing was really looking good in New York.  At the end of the month another moisture-laden storm tracked too far west to be ideal.

The net-net was a few inches of snow in the Catskills followed by significant rainfall. In the Adirondacks, most of what fell was frozen if not exactly blower, and the trees were still in play.

While Vermont got much the same as the Adirondacks out of the storm itself, as is often the case, there was some nice upslope on the backside. Over the next few days following the storm, instability in the upper reaches of he atmosphere continued to drop snow along the Green Mountain spine.

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By the end of the first week of February, the mountains recovered from a double whammy January meltdown. Very cold temps and modest amounts of natural snow had things in good shape.

At the same time Accuweather and other sources of weather prognostication began to forecast a double barrel storm to impact the northeast. A potent Alberta Clipper was predicted to come across the northern tier of the US and drop the better part of a foot of snow on New York and then pass the baton to a strong coastal low, at which point all hell was supposed to break loose.

The first low tracked as expected but was more typical of a moisture starved clipper. To follow it, the second low developed a bit too far to the east to hammer New York.

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