Mount Rainier Paradise reaches 200" snow depth

Another piece of interesting trivia from my memory archives is that there was 186" of snow still on the ground  at Paradise on July 18th (I think 1975). Didn't 1974-75 break or nearly break the record of snowfall from '71-'72? It must have been a pretty crappy early summer.

To add to that, I also did the Ruth-Icy traverse in mid-late September of the same summer. The Baker ski area (Pandome) still had a north facing snowline of about 4500', although much of that melted off in a very warm October before snow fell. It seemed like the glaciers were going to advance with no end in sight after three record snowfall years out of five, but then came the drought years of the late 70's and 1980.

What an awesome thread!!! Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this fun read!!!

Another piece of interesting trivia from my memory archives is that there was 186" of snow still on the ground at Paradise on July 18th (I think 1975). Didn't 1974-75 break or nearly break the record of snowfall from '71-'72? It must have been a pretty crappy early summer.

It was 1973-74 which almost tied the snowfall record and holds many daily snowdepth records, in 1974-75 the snowfall and depth was much less (although still far above normal). The summer of 1974 holds all of the late-season daily snowdepth records at Paradise from about May 14 onward, although it was tied or barely exceeded in 1999 for a few days around July 4-9. It looks like the snowdepth on July 18, 1974, was 122", while the last day at or above 186" was June 21. The last day above 200" was June 18, with July 22 the last day above 100". The snowpack at the measuring stake did not melt away to zero until August 27, 1974. Following a bit of snow on October 20-21 which quickly melted, new snowfall which did not melt away until the next summer started on October 29 -- so the snow stake was only snow-free in 1974 for just over 2 months in late summer and early autumn.

Here are plots of snowfall and snowdepth for the 6 seasons at Paradise which reached either 300" of snowdepth or 1000" of snowfall. Data for Paradise in the archives at the National Climatic Data Center begins on December 1, 1916 -- about 250-300" of snowfall must have fallen in September, October, and November 1916 to produce the 97" depth on that date, so the true season total is probably close to 1000" for the 1916-17 season:













These plots are generated by a script on my website at www.skimountaineer.com/CascadeSki/ParadiseCraterLakeSnow.php -- I need to update the data on that page to include the seasons since 2006.

Thanks, Amar for the additional data and correction. I recall the (1974) snow season as being Crystal's greatest. And it was deep in April. They had to plow out a trough maybe 6' deep at the top of Sunnyside and for many years there were marks on the chair towers showing the maximum depths at individual towers.

The best ski year of all those years that I recall was 1970-71, which not only snowed a lot but was also quite cool. Skykomish had maybe 6' for quite awhile that winter, something that didn't
happen again until two years ago. The great skiing of 1970-71 was not approached again until the 3-1/2 week period in 1990, much of the winter of 1996-97 and, of course, 1998-99.

I did find out that NWAC does indeed have archives that should date back to 1990. If they successfully retrieve those archives we should be able to see the records from the key period in 1990.

These plots are generated by a script on my website at www.skimountaineer.com/CascadeSki/ParadiseCraterLakeSnow.php -- I need to update the data on that page to include the seasons since 2006.

The data has been updated through the 2010 season, which took a lot more work than expected. Unfortunately, the snowfall data at Paradise (which is manually measured and recorded daily by a park ranger) has been more unreliable the past few years than it previously was, due in part to the road not opening at all for several-day stretches numerous times, but perhaps due to other issues as well. Where snowfall data has been missing, I've estimated the snowfall for the missing days using NWAC telemetry, and added it to the monthly totals -- estimated amounts are marked with an *.

Here is the plot for the most recent La Nina season prior to the current season:

So much for 1990 :'( Although the avalanche observations are correct.

Kenny from NWAC says that he added up snowfall records from January 18th to February 17th of that year by combining both WDOT and ski area reports (since each was missing some data). A possibly slightly overstated total for that period was still an impressive 285" (so I don't know where I got the earlier number of nearly 500"). But not to despair, so far this month Baker has had 227" with 105" in the past 7 days - our first 100" week in a long while

The biggest weekly total I ever recall as a Baker skier in the late 60's, 70's and 80's was 109" all of which fell in about 4 and 1/2 days. I skied that Saturday and it was surprisingly well settled despite being cool.

The biggest 3 day total I know of was 99" preceding the Yodelin avalanche (again that comes from verbal communication with 2 friends who were ski patrols at Stevens at that time).

The biggest one day total was at Crystal about 10-15 years ago with 65". My sister was riding the lifts that day and said that "They all looked like they were stuck on flypaper." Nobody was going anywhere. Ken confirmed that snowfall; as he said he was forecasting that day and they still don't know how that happened.

I skied a dump of 48" in one day at Baker in the 1970's. It was 12 degrees and sunny with great skiing, about 20F and sunny in Bellingham. The freeway was only plowed in one lane that morning north of Mt. Vernon and there was about 20" on I-5. At the end of the day, by the time I got to south Everett, it turned to rain and snow mixed, as it was in Seattle at 36F - the same temperature and weather as at Crystal that day. An arctic front was stalled in the Everett area. The biggest temperature difference I ever recall.