Paradise snowdepth reaches triple digits!

All week I've been playing a silly game of trying to guess when the Paradise Snowdepth would reach 100"s. It did today at 10am.<br><br> www.nwac.us/~nwac/products/OSOPVC

Me too!<br>Finally. It seems like it's been flirting with it for over a week now.<br><br>I was also wondering if anyone has a sense of how the Pineapples affected snow high on the mountain, above the freezing levels when they came through. What does 6" of rain at Paradise translate to at 11000' when the snow level is ~9000? Was the upper part of the mtn above the precip so it didnt get any snow out of it or did it dump up there? So is it possible that snow depths above ~10k are closer to normal?<br><br>Reason I ask .. we're planning on doing the Emmons in mid-June and I'm wondering if I should be bringing skis. <br><br>  

<br><br><br>I was also wondering if anyone has a sense of how the Pineapples affected snow high on the mountain, above <br><br>Reason I ask .. we're planning on doing the Emmons in mid-June and I'm wondering if I should be bringing skis. <br><br>  

<br><br>Thats a no brainer. Bring them on all trips.<br>

Mike Gauthier posts on the Rainier board on www.cascadeclimbers.com . I'd ask him, but wait a month or two. <br><br>It's my impression that snowfall in the Cascades maxes out around 8 or 9000 feet, but I'd be happy to be told this is wrong. <br><br>Mark

And from the photo's on the DOT site, the snow at Chinook Pass is stacking up.<br><br>March 14<br> <br><br><br>And same view on<br>April 13<br>

Regarding the significance of the 100" number at Paradise, I discovered a very surprising and interesting fact just a couple of days ago. In all the years that weather data has been recorded at Paradise since 1916, the snowdepth has never failed to reach at least 100" during any previous season. The lowest maximum seasonal snowdepth was in 1940-41, when the snowdepth reached 100" on Jan 26 and never broke the century mark again. In fact, the snowdepth has failed to reach 120" in only two seasons, 1940-41 and again the very next season, 1941-42, when it reached 118" on three separate days in March. Even in the severe drought year of 1976-77, the snowdepth hit 126" on April 1. For comparison, the average maximum-snowdepth reached at Paradise is 201", typically set on March 30. This is greater than the maximum average-snowdepth of 177", reached around April 1. (Yes, these two values always differ, that's what happens when multiple sharply-peaked functions are averaged together.) This histogram shows how often various seasonal maxima have occurred:<br><br> <br><br>By the way, note that the NWAC telemetry station usually reads several inches greater snowdepth than the manual NPS measurement , perhaps because it appears to be located about 100 ft higher. The official NPS number has yet to exceed 92" this season, so it still has some serious catching up to do. Despite the sustained snowfall over the past 4 weeks, this season is still likely to end up as the worst overall in the WA Cascades since 1940-41. Thankfully, it's no longer the worst ever recorded.<br><br>On skiing the Emmons: I would certainly bring skis in mid-June this year. I've skied the Emmons-Winthrop from the true summit twice, in mid-July 1999 and late July 2004 . As of now, it seems likely that snowpack conditions at middle-upper elevations in mid-June this year should be similar to late July of last year. At the very least, the Inter Glacier should offer 3500+ vft of excellent corn with minimal crevasses. The Emmons should also be relatively unbroken throughout the Corridor and up into the big bowl at 13000 ft. The entire route is likely to be a continuous ski from the summit at that time, depending on your comfort level skiing the heavily crevassed and seraced terrain near the bergschrunds at 13500 ft. <br><br>In general, spring snowdepths on the upper parts of isolated volcanoes depend largely on the extent of strong scouring winter winds, more so than the precip recorded lower down. Precip at Paradise from Sept 1 - April 15 this season has been 81", about 80% of normal for that period. So all other things being equal, snowfall and snowdepth above 9000 ft (the highest freezing levels seen this winter) should be roughly 80% of normal, too. However, this winter has seen fewer than normal major storms and overall much less strong upper levels winds, a consequence on the jet stream largely being aimed elsewhere. So one would expect upper mountain snowdepths to be over 80% of normal this year, whatever "normal" might be up there (it's hard to record snowdepths or calculate normals above treeline, where all accumulation is wind dependent). That is unless the recent storms have been accompanied by unusually strong upper level winds, which is doubtful. It's typically hurricane-force northwesterly upper level winds which cause the majority of wind scour on the volcanoes, and we haven't had too much of that this season.<br><br>