Worst Ski Season Ever?

Wow, quite a hot topic here!<br><br>One thing nobody seems to have mentioned is that the region of record-low snowpack this season as of March 1 is largely confined to WA state, perhaps extending north to Vancouver Island and south to Mount Hood. However, in most of the rest of BC and OR, although this is a poor snow year, it is far above the record lows of 1980-81 or 1976-77 or other earlier years. Meanwhile, the CA Cascades and Sierra are enjoying a snowpack which is near-average to well-above average. See my newly-updated Cascade Snowfall and Snowdepth report for March 1.<br><br>People have mentioned finding better snow conditions up high. The snowpack well-above treeline (above 6000-7000 ft) in the WA Cascades this season is probably not as bad as 1976-77 or the severe drought years during the 1930s and 1940s, although there is really no way to verify that. There was certainly plenty of snowfall up high during the 4 major Pineapple Expresses this season, when heavy rain washed away the snowpack at the various measurement sites and ski areas (all of which are located below treeline).<br><br>Throughout the whole Cascade Range (and the entire West Coast), 1976-77 remains unique in having set record-low snowdepths and winter-season precipitation values at hundreds of measurement sites over a vast geographic range, extending from southwestern BC all the way to southern California. Why is this important? Well, at least this year, you have the choice to head south or east (or even north, not to mention UP) for vastly improved snowpack and snow conditions. This may be small comfort to the Seattle-based weekend warrior with limited time and energy, but road trips are fun and it's always nice to broaden one's horizons beyond the local hills.<br>

Its almost like someone put a curse on WA this season. Many other areas are having an exceptional season at WA's expense. I guess it was just our turn to be on the short end........

According to the models that I posted above, we may be coming up on the short end more often in the future. I'm only betting on the fact that those results forecast only trends, I'm hoping we get to experiance many more anaomolous years not predicted by weather models.

I'm hoping that further north up the coast the snowpack is doing better than here...I'm leaving for a traverse of the waddington range in six weeks and my buddies and I still aren't entirely convinced we're going to find the glaciers in decent shape.<br>Been watching these snow pillow tables for the past months-<br> wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/rfc/river_forecast/spdcoastal.html

Everything around Vancouver looks really grim, but somewhere between Vancouver and Bella Coola it looks like the mountains have been getting the usual loads of snow this winter.
Unless we hear something definite about the area's snowpack, we're probably going for it...hopefully we'll find winter up there somewhere.

According to the models that I posted above, we may be coming up on the short end more often in the future. I'm only betting on the fact that those results forecast only trends, I'm hoping we get to experiance many more anaomolous years not predicted by weather models.

<br><br><br>I used to hear from my parents "it sure used to snow a lot more when I was a kid". I then thought, "yea there sure seems to have been more snow when I was a kid too". The problem is, the records don't prove this to be true, but I think its more selective memory. When I was a kid growing up in Yakima we had some good snow years, cold years, and some warm years. The season with the most snow on the ground in Yakima at one time is not the 1930s, 1950s, but 1997 when they had 4 1/2' of snow......well past my childhood. The cascades have had some pretty big snow years in the past 10 years too........ The only trends I see is that the weather gods can't seem to predict the season very well. <br>The past 8 seasons we had snow totals on Snoqualmie as follows:<br><br>602"<br>362"<br>603" <br>427"<br>300"<br>514"<br>235"<br>373"<br><br>Do I see a trend? The only trend I see is that you never know what kind of season you will get....... The 1950s were our best snow decade in WA, but the worse snow decade was the 1940s. I'm positive next season will be a normal snowfall and this season will be just a bad memory. I'm sure another one will come along in the future just as they have been here in the past. <br><br>I just thought.....Mt StHelens was blowing its top in the summer of 1980 (followed by a horrible snow season 80/81). This year Mt StHelens is rumbling again and again we had a bad snow season...... Kinda funny, huh...? Blame it on St Helens!!!

The people that do climate prediction take alot more scientific approach to their work than the last 8 seasons of snowpack at Snoqualmie. They try to eliminate natural variability caused by the PDO and ENSO events, and when they do this, they show warming trends for the last century.<br><br>One thing to consider is that Cascade snowfall is in a very delicate balance with temperature, and it could just be possible that we are reaching the tipping point only now. One interesting test to this theory would be to look at the occurence of snowfall at lower elevations in WA over the last 100 years. I would imagine that if we are reaching some tipping point, casued by increasing temps, that the tipping point is moving higher in elevation over time, and thus we would have already experianced this point in lower elevation areas. Just a thought, no data to show for it.