Photo caption credit to John Dortch who spun off 20 miles into Perkins Clearing with the new snow.
Our Saturday night into Sunday snow event delivered a dump of white gold onto the central Adirondacks to make it finally look like winter!
Total snowfall was 8 inches at the ilsnow storm center in Indian Lake, NY. Reports of 9 inches to nearly a foot along the Route 8 corridor from Wells to Piseco.
Snowmobiling options?
Narrow woods trails are soft and muddy under the new snow. NOT worth riding your snowmobile on, unless you’re gonna bang them out on a beater sled. See what I mean?
Seasonal roads did freeze (for the most part) before we got our starter snow. Places like Powley Road, Perkins Clearing, Speculator Tree Farm and Moose River Plains are in play. If the groomers head out this week, it would be to pack the snow down to start a base. Ride with more caution than usual to account for hazards.
Moose River Plains
Park at Browns Farm lot near the end of Cedar River Road and ride into Moose River Plains from there. It’s now $10/snowmobile to park and ride. Assuming the gate at Cedar River Headquarters was closed during the snow drought, it’s OK to ride around it before DEC or the Town grooming crew reopens it.
Perkins Clearing
South end of Perkins Clearing Road into Mud Lake Road is being plowed for logging and closed for snowmobiling. Southern bypass trail into Perkins Clearing is open, but will be at your own risk riding until we get some serious cold to freeze mud holes.
PERKINS CLEARING UPDATE: Lyme Timber loggers had left some equipment in Perkins Clearing and had to plow into the north end of Perkins Clearing Road to get their equipment out. They will finish this by some point Tuesday morning before bad weather rolls in.
Speculator Tree Farm
Much of Elm Lake Road is being plowed for logging and closed for snowmobiling. But you’d still be able to ride Fly Creek Road/Long Level Road to Wolf Hill Road via the back end of Elm Lake Road.
Old Route 30 to Robbs Creek Road will be loggest this winter. You’ll need to use the same bypass as last winter.
Remainder of Tree Farm should be open for snowmobiling this winter.
Powley Road
Enough snow to ride it.
Lakes
Stay off lakes. They are unsafe to ride! Enough said on that.
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Midweek Outlook
Quiet through Tuesday morning. A powerful storm will bring a quick punch of heavy snow Tuesday afternoon/evening, followed by a hit of heavy rain into pre-dawn Wednesday. If that wasn’t enough, throw in strong winds and even the risk of thunder overnight Tuesday night.
Not the customer we want. But I’m hoping a front-end snow thump and the storm’s rapid movement would mitigate snow pack loss.
There may be a quick hitting lake-effect snow event into the western Adirondacks Wednesday night. But the air mass behind this storm would not be that cold.
Next weekend?
GEPS is depicting a robust North America winter pattern with the Polar Vortex (PV) shoved into south-central Canada. A strong shortwave (SW) rotating around the Polar Vortex’s base will likely generate a powerhouse storm by Saturday.
There is uncertainty among the ensemble modelology with storm track. Would the developing high latitude block be enough to force coastal redevelopment and grant us a snowstorm instead of a mixed bag event? I don’t know yet.
See the hard core cold over western Canada! I can’t recall that last time a weather map would have looked like that. There is opportunity for winter fun and games down the road.
Bottom line
Up and down ride, but better times are likely ahead as we press deeper into January.
Until then, ride with abundant caution whilst we have winter starter conditions.
One more time – DON’T RIDE THE LAKES!
For the ilsnow nation,
Darrin
