Wow! Friday and especially Saturday were the two busiest days we’ve had for snowmobiling all winter here in the central Adirondacks. I think most people had the same idea: Get out whilst we still can.
Heavy traffic, warm weather and a quarter-inch of rain did its expected damage over the weekend. But we did not suffer a wipeout. Sunday’s cold tightened everything firm and hard. Remnant snowpack is in the 1-2 foot range, depending on exposure.
People are asking how the conditions are this week.
I did a spot check of trails from the road and can tell you that Town of Indian Lake has started grooming our trails. I saw this on S86 on Crow Hill Road, heading toward Bear Trap Swamp.
For now, the Crow Hill Road shelf of S86 is still intact. And S86 from Crow Hill toward One Stop is holding together. These places usually get smoked first in town – so it’s good to seem them holding serve.
S86 Crow Hill Road Shelf 
S86 from Crow Hill Road toward One Stop
The actual snowmobile riding won’t be as good as these pictures appear. Undoubtedly, there are trail sections with corners worn to dirt, stretches of frozen snirt, rocks poking through, rutted ice and bumps frozen in time. Ice scratchers and patience would be assets, for sure.
Places like C8A/Old 538 Newcomb Trail, Powley Road, Perkins Clearing and Speculator Tree Farm are likely holding up better than 2 Miles from Hell, S84 heading out of Indian Lake and C8 heading out to Cedar River Headquarters. Based on what I saw from riding last week, the final miles of Moose River Plains to Limeklin Gate are probably threadbare, if not almost completely smoked by now.
Lakes aren’t glare ice yet, but there are plenty of frozen slush ruts out there.
Bottom line
If you have reasonable expectations for marginal conditions and want it bad enough, you can ride here. Anything you’d see through Wednesday would be much better than what we’re likely to see by the weekend.
Nightmare on Thursday
Most of the modelology and their ensemble members are showing a storm track riding through the St. Lawrence Valley Thursday into Thursday night, which would put the central Adirondacks in line for significant rain. Temperatures would certainly be in the 40s, perhaps punching past 50*F for a time Thursday night. I’m showing the EPS ensemble here.
Last night’s GEM and its ensemble members were showing a suppressed storm track for Thursday night, suggesting cold air bleeding here sooner with a changeover to meaningful snowfall overnight. This solution appears to be the outlier. 9 times out of 10, the outlier proves to be the liar.
Regardless of what happens, a charge of Arctic cold would slam in like a purple hammer on Friday. All slop and mess would freeze solid before the weekend.
After that?
Through the following week (and likely through the remainder of February), we’ll be stuck with the Polar Vortex (PV) parked over Baffin Island and a Pacific North America Oscillation (PNA-) trough over the western United States. This pattern should lead to a maddening alternating series of cold, dry air masses and mixed-precip or rain events as storm systems track to our west.
A strong cross-polar flow would keep the cold bank fully stocked over Canada. So, I’m not going to “kill” snowmobiling season just yet.
Entering March?
Extended GFS has been showing the start of a possible sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event in early March. This could break up the “death grip” and allow sustainable cold to reassert its dominance over the eastern United States.
Today’s GFS was showing cold, cross-polar flow interacting with southern branch jet-stream weather systems by early March. I’m not looking to pin specific events this far out in time. I’m looking at the big picture. This appears promising for snow opportunities.
By then, we may need a major dump of snow, or a rapid succession of moderate snow events to get snowmobiling really going again. But I’ve learned that it’s never truly over in ilsnow land until it is OVER!
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
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