NORTHEASTERN WINTER WEATHER AND CLIMATE
Who gets the most snow?
I'll bet you thought it was Vermont. Well, mostly wrong, unless you zero in on Jay Peak, which really does get the most. Otherwise, the most snow in the Northeast falls on... (get this...) New York's TUG HILL PLATEAU! Don't believe it? Check out NOAA's NRFE Average Snowfall map for the Northeast USA (left).
Another fun fact is that the west-central Adirondacks get as much snow as the big ski areas in Vermont.
Note that the map on the left doesn't show the higher snowfall amounts along the high spine of the Green Mountains in Vermont, but it does show the very snowy area around Jay Peak up by the Canadian border. The map also doesn't show the snowy area around Mount Marcy in New York's Adirondack High Peaks.
NEW YORK STATE ANNUAL SNOWFALL 1981-2010
WEST-CENTRAL and SOUTHERN ADIRONDACKS
The second snowiest region in New York State is the west-central and south-central Adirondacks, which average 150 to 200 inches of snowfall per year. Unlike the Tug Hill, there are some pretty good mountains in the southern ADKs, some of which can be great for backcountry skiing when there's 3+ feet of snow on the ground. There's also a very nice little ski hill outside of Old Forge, called McCauley Mountain. It's small, with 633 feet of vertical, but it has some challenging terrain, and it can be a great place to ski when there's a lot of snow (which is pretty often).
THE ADIRONDACKS HIGH PEAKS
The area surrounding Mount Marcy, in the Adirondacks High Peaks, also gets a lot of snow per year, over 150 inches. That's the deep purple splotch to the west of Lake Champlain on the map. These are real mountains, so all the challenges and dangers of a mountain environment are present and accounted for, including avalanches. Of course, there's also real mountain terrain, like the Adirondack slides and some little-known open woods that are great to ski when there's good snow, along with a few popular down-mountain ski trails.
THE CATSKILLS HIGH PEAKS
Looking at the Catskills, you can see that they're kind of snow-challenged compared to the Adirondacks and Tug Hill. The Catskill High Peaks are that southernmost dark blue splotch directly west of the CT/MA state line. The Catskills High Peaks average around 100 inches snowfall per year, which is about the same as the Berkshires or Mount Snow. If you know where to look for open deciduous woods that aren't clogged up with beech thickets, or remember where the skiable hiking trails and woods roads are, there's some fine ski terrain in the Cats. Some years the snow builds up in March to the point where there's a 3 foot or deeper snowpack all over the Catskill 3500 peaks. Then things can get very, very good there.
THE BERKSHIRES AND SOUTHERN VERMONT
As mentioned previously, the Berkshires including Mount Greylock get about the same amount of annual snowfall as the Catskills High Peaks. However, there are some small areas where more snow falls than surrounding areas. One notable example is what many of us have come to call the "Woodford Plateau," which is home to the Prospect Mountain cross country ski center, Woodford State Park and the George D. Aiken Wilderness area. That area, like the area around Stratton Pond, is a plateau sitting at over 2000 feet elevation which catches quite a lot of snow, and somehow manages to hold onto it longer than other areas. The Woodford Plateau isn't mountainous, but it is becoming a well-loved destination for NYC metro area nordic skiers who love good snow and some solitude.
THE TUG HILL
Do you see that big light pink splotch west of the Adirondacks and north of Syracuse, just east of Lake Ontario? That's the Tug Hill Plateau, which averages more than 200 inches of snowfall a year. That's as much as many big-time ski resorts out West!
The one thing that keeps this area from being a skier's paradise is its terrain. The Hill is basically flat to gently rolling. There are deep stream gullies and a sort of escarpment off the east side of the plateau, but there are no mountains. However, if you enjoy breaking trail up to your waist in fresh powder, this is the place.
There is a nice little ski hill on the eastern edge of the Tug Hill called Snow Ridge. It's small, with only 500 feet of vertical, but when it's covered in 3+ feet of lovely, fresh lake effect powder, nobody cares. You can have a lot of fun there.
There's also an excellent nordic center called Osceola-Tug Hill XC Ski Center. It catches a lot of lake effect snow, especially earlier in the season from December to February.
Now let's look at how northern NY State compares for average snowfall to Vermont's Green Mountains and New Hampshire's White Mountains.
First, find where the three big-time snowfall areas of NY State sit on the map:
You can see the big pink splotch of the Tug Hill on the left (west) side of the map, which gets more than 200 inches snowfall per year.
Then there's the large purple area to the east, which is the west-central Adirondacks, averaging between 150 and 200 inches per year.
Moving east across the Adirondacks, to the east of Tupper Lake and south of Lake Placid is the Adirondacks High Peaks region, which is also purple, indicating 150 to 200 inches per year.
As you move east to Lake Champlain, you can see that the average snowfall drops to under 50 inches per year, until you get to the snow-catching spine of Vermont's Green Mountains. Vermont has some relatively small areas that catch a lot of snow. From north to south:
The spine of purple indicating 150 to 200 inches snowfall per year includes Jay Peak, which is in a spot that sometimes catches 300+ inches per year.
The area around Mount Mansfield, including the Stowe and Smugglers Notch ski resorts, is in deep purple, indicating 150 to 200 inches per year.
After dropping down to the Winooski River and I-89, the Greens rise again to Camels Hump and the Mad River Valley areas, which include the Mad River Glen and Sugarbush ski resorts. These are in the small purple spots along the spine of the mountains.
To the east of Rutland is a dark blue spot indicating the location of the Killington ski resort, which averages 125 to 150 inches snowfall.
Finally, just northeast of Bennington, sits the Stamford-Stratton Plateau west of Stratton Mountain, which sits at over 2000 ft elevation. This area also gets 125 to 150 inches per year, but more importantly, tends to hold on to a lot of that snow all through the season.
Moving east across the White River, which forms the Vermont-New Hampshire border, we reach the high White Mountains.
Of course the Whites are capped by Mount Washington, whose location is indicated by the small pink splotch showing where over 200 inches of snow falls per year.
It's interesting to see that in Vermont and New Hampshire, the high snowfall averages occur only in the highest terrain along the mountain ridges and on a couple of high plateaus. The Adirondack High Peaks catch a lot of snow much like the mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, in north-central NY State, there are large lower elevation and less mountainous areas with equally high average snowfall amounts. Those high average snowfall amounts are due to the magic of lake effect. Lake Ontario is huge, and contains an awful lot of fresh water. In December and January, while the waters are open and the Great Lakes have not yet frozen over, cold Arctic air blows from the northwest out of Canada, over the lakes, warms up and absorbs water vapor, and then hits the 2000 foot elevation Tug Hill Plateau. The sudden uplift chills the air, and water precipitates out as snow. When conditions are just right, intense bands of dense clouds moving west to east dump immense amounts of snow on the Tug Hill and western and southern Adirondacks. Sometimes the snow bands reach south into the Finger Lakes and Catskills, or east into the Adirondacks High Peaks and even Vermont's Green Mountains.
If you've ever driven through one of these lake effect snow bands, you know how suddenly they seem to appear, and how they can form complete white-outs where you can't tell where the ground meets the horizon meets the sky. Everything becomes simply gray-white. If you're heading up to the Tug Hill or the southern or western parts of the Adirondacks in winter, make sure you have a shovel in your car. You may need it!
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