“We Do What We Can” An Unfortunate East Coast Snow Report

While the west has reaped the benefits of this years El Nino year, the East Coast has suffered from warm temperatures, low snowfall, and their notoriously bad freeze-thaw cycles. Tim Kelly From Ski The East gives us an optimistic look at the past weeks shit show of weather and snow conditions from the top of Mt. Mansfield in Stowe Vermont. The last weekend of February saw cold temperatures, and some area's of the mountain either got snow or made snow. Then an extreme thaw-freeze cycle that drives Vermonters crazy, as Monday the 29th saw a high of 50 degrees during the day with rain, followed by temperatures of -10 the following morning. This has pretty much been the unfortunate story of the East Coast's winter this year. 

Related: 5- 10 Feet Of Snow Expected In The Sierra

By the middle of the week, the conditions turned into what some call "fine East Coast skiing", a hard layer of crust beneath a few inches of dust snow. Once again El Nino's western benefits will wreak havoc on the East as California is projected to receive several feet while New England will see temperatures as high as the 70s'.  

Just as Tim Kelly joyfully reports of a fine day of "dust on crust" eastern bump skiing atop Mt. Mansfield, an old saying carved in a wall of the Mt. Mansfield Ski Patrol hut reads "Here we sit and dream of the West, but are lured to Stowe to ski with the best. The West has powder, sure that's nice, but here in Stowe, we ski on ice". 

-Barclay Dugger, courtesy of  Mt.MansfieldSkipatrol.org