Mount Rainier Paradise reaches 200" snow depth

Mid-June sounds like good spring skiing this year,and I'll go with you, too.

Updated totals for the leading CA telemetry sites:
Mt Shasta, Old Ski Bowl (7600 ft) reached 209" last night, and has now settled by a few inches to 204".
Lassen Peak, Lake Helen (8250 ft) reached 241" last night, and has now settled by a few inches to 237", but remains just ahead of Baker Ski Area which has 233".
Meadow Lake CCSS site (7200 ft) appears to have reached 235" last night, although the data remains very flaky and intermittent.
Leavitt Lake SNOTEL (9600 ft) reached 225" this morning, and has now settled by a few inches to 221".

A couple of the Tahoe ski areas are now reporting summit snowdepths of over 300" (as always, some of the numbers are inconsistent from day-to-day, and no telemetry sites near the ski areas come close to matching these depths, except at Mammoth):
Sugar Bowl:  62-86" new the last 3 days, and still reports a 154-287" snowdepth (unchanged since yesterday).
Boreal:  83-90" new the last 3 days, and now reports a 175-300" snowdepth (it was only 100-200" yesterday ??).
Northstar:  42-52" new the last 3 days, with a 210" snowdepth at its summit.
Squaw Valley:  58-72" new the last 3 days, with a 250" upper snowdepth (yesterday was only 190" ??) and seasonal snowfall of 596" at 8200 ft according to their Snowfall Tracker 2010-11 .
Alpine Meadows:  73-101" new the last 3 days, and now reports a 175-308" snowdepth.
Sierra at Tahoe:  36-66" new the last 3 days, and still reports a 208" snowdepth at its summit (unchanged since yesterday).
Kirkwood:  75-90" new the last 2 days, and now reports a 203-247" snowdepth, with seasonal snowfall of 627-641" -- the changes since yesterday don't quite add-up, as usual.
Mammoth:  63-100" new the last 3 days, with a 15-22 ft (180-264") snowdepth and 530" of seasonal snowfall.
The Mammoth Ski Patrol's telemetry site at 9000 ft has 188", and the nearby Mammoth Pass USBR site (9300 ft) has 195" as of this morning.

Interesting that 4 out of the past 7 years at Mammoth have been over 500" and among the all time leaders (including the top 2 and likely the top 3 before this calms down):

patrol.mammothmountain.com/MMSA-SnowSummary70-Current.htm

The 2010-11 snow season continues to be fascinating, with periods of exceptional snowfall in both the Pacific Northwest and California over the last 6 weeks since mid-February. The just-concluded back-to-back-to-back huge California storm cycles (March 14-16, 17-22 and 23-27) brought 10-20 ft of snowfall to Shasta, Lassen, and the Sierra Nevada, but that appears to be the last of the heavy snowfall for California for at least the next 1-2 weeks as the storm track is shifting back into the Pacific Northwest over that period.

Updated totals for the leading telemetry sites, those which have exceeded 200" at some point this season:

The Upper Squamish River BCRFC site (4500 ft, west of Whistler and Mt Cayley) has settled to 213" as of March 25, well off its seasonal maximum of 239" on March 16 -- still the most of any Canadian telemetry site. Online data for all BCRFC telemetry sites appears to be down since March 25.

Mt Baker Ski Area (4200 ft) has 224" as of March 28 (about 130% of normal), well off its seasonal maximum of 253" on March 16. The ski area reports a base of 262" at 5000 ft atop Pan Dome, well off its seasonal maximum of 283" on March 17. The Mt Washington ski area on Vancouver Island reports 273" as of March 28 at their mid-mountain site (about 4500 ft), and has remained ahead of Baker throughout this season since late December, when it reported over 80" new in 3 days before Christmas, reaching a 205" snowdepth on December 25.

Brown Top SNOTEL (5830 ft, on the long ridge extending east from Mt Redoubt in the North Cascades) reached 202" on March 16-17, and now has 170" as of March 28 after continuing settlement with minimal additional snowfall since March 19.
Easy Pass SNOTEL (5270 ft, 8 miles east of Mt Shuksan) has no working snowdepth sensor, but its snow-water equivalent has held near 92" with minimal additional snowfall since March 19, implying a snowdepth of around 200-220" as of March 28.
Cayuse Pass SNOTEL (5240 ft, near the hairpin turn on SR 410 above Cayuse Pass) reached 202" on March 16, and now has 201" as of March 28 with continuing occasional snowfall offsetting the settlement.

And Paradise continues to hover near and just above/below 200" for the past 18 days since March 10, with continuing new snowfall slightly exceeding the ongoing settlement of the snowpack. Snowfall for the season-to-date is reported at 689" as of this morning March 28, already surpassing its average annual snowfall of 680" (the highest average of any measurement site in the world). The depth is 210" on the NPS snow stake (a new seasonal maximum and 120% of normal) with 203" on the NWAC telemetry as of March 28, just shy of the seasonal telemetry maximum of 204" on March 16.

Mt Hood, Timberline Lodge (6000 ft) is up to 179" as of March 28, its seasonal high and about 110% of normal, with seasonal snowfall of 560". No other telemetry sites in Oregon are over 160", although Mt Bachelor Ski Area is reporting a base of 170-195" (at 6300 and 7700 ft), with 543" of snowfall and 17" new today. Crater Lake park headquarters (6400 ft) has a seasonal high of 156" (about 130% of normal) as of March 28 with 542" of snowfall, already surpassing its average annual snowfall of 524".

Mt Shasta, Old Ski Bowl (7600 ft) reached 223" on March 24, and after settling by several inches, with renewed snowfall again reached 223" on March 26 and is now at 222" as of March 28 (about 180% of normal). The sensor is mounted much too low at this site at only 237" high, and many readings over the past few days have been this 237" value. If it resumes snowing heavily, the sensor may get buried like it did in 2006 when the snowdepth reached 284" (in a manual measurement on April 12), an all-time record for any site on Mt Shasta. (Yesterday's report from the Mt Shasta Avalanche Center staff assumes that the sensor is already buried and estimates the snowdepth at 245+" -- however, the data appears to indicate that the sensor may not quite be buried yet.)

Lassen Peak, Lake Helen (8250 ft) reached 274" on March 26 and now reads 269" as of March 28 (about 160% of normal). This is the most of any telemetry site in North America this season, but well below this location's record depth of 331" set on March 31, 1983 (a monthly manual snow course measurement, 20 years before the telemetry site was built). This site has two snowdepth sensors, the primary one mounted at 297" above ground and an auxiliary sensor (on another tower?) at 357" high -- the auxiliary sensor has been reading about 10" less than the primary one for the past few weeks, although mostly it's giving the 357" error value.

The Lassen Volcanic National Park visitor center (6700 ft) has a depth of 192" as of March 28. The visitor center has been closed since March 23 due to the heavy snowfall, and the webcam looking north out the window shows that the building has gotten nearly buried by snow:









The Meadow Lake CCSS site (7200 ft, north of I-80 and Lake Tahoe) appears to have reached 261" as of March 25 and showed 259" as of March 27, although the data remains very flaky and intermittent (most of the readings are 276", which is the height of the sensor above ground).

Independence Lake SNOTEL (8350 ft, 15 miles east of Meadow Lake CCSS site) reached 214" as of March 25, and has 196" as of March 28.
Stanislaus Meadow CCSS site (7750 ft, on Hwy 4, south of Lake Tahoe) reached 200" as of March 25, and has 186" as of March 28.
Leavitt Lake SNOTEL (9600 ft, west of Bridgeport, well south of Lake Tahoe) reached 237" as of March 25, and has 230" as of March 28.

The Mammoth Ski Patrol's telemetry site at 9000 ft reached 215" as of March 25, and has 199" as of March 28. The nearby Mammoth Pass USBR site (9300 ft) reached 195" as of March 21 and again on March 23, but the snowdepth sensor has been offline since then even as 3-4 ft of additional snow has fallen.


Several of the Tahoe ski areas plus Mammoth are reporting summit snowdepths of over 300" as of March 27, the end of the recent storm cycles (as always, some of the numbers are inconsistent from day-to-day, and no telemetry sites near the ski areas come close to matching these depths, except at Mammoth):

Sugar Bowl: snowdepth 178-303"
Boreal: snowdepth 275-375" ?!?
Northstar: snowdepth 132-231", season snowfall 404-634", and 109-166" new during the March 14-27 period.
Squaw Valley: snowdepth 95-265", season snowfall 441-689", which they say breaks their all-time record snowfall of 662", with 151-209" new during the March 14-27 period and 168-241" for the month of March.
Alpine Meadows: snowdepth 189-312", season snowfall 572-800" with a new record of 201" in March
Sierra at Tahoe: snowdepth 132-250", season snowfall 430-719", and 101-204" new during the March 14-27 period.
Kirkwood: snowdepth 229-273", season snowfall 691-713"

Interesting that 4 out of the past 7 years at Mammoth have been over 500" and among the all time leaders (including the top 2 and likely the top 3 before this calms down):

patrol.mammothmountain.com/MMSA-SnowSummary70-Current.htm

Mammoth has a snowdepth of 204-324", with season snowfall 606" and 151" new during the March 14-27 period, as reported by the ski area . Snowfall is 589" as reported on the Mammoth Ski Patrol's pages , with 148" new during the March 14-27 period.

Confusingly, Mammoth has two entirely different sets of long-term monthly snowfall stats, from the ski area (main lodge, 8900 ft) and the ski patrol (9000 ft snow study plot nearby). The numbers differ slightly (typically a few percent) but they are impossible to fully reconcile with each other (missing months in one set or the other, some months with large differences between the two sets, even though most are very close, etc). This year's 589" is a new record in the ski patrol stats, exceeding the 578" recorded in 2005-6, but the ski area recorded 668" that same year and widely reported that number as its all-time record snowfall.


[size=small](Edited to fix broken link.)[/size]

That visitor's center is not short. Whole lotta snow! Thanks Amar!

www.flickr.com/photos/76248783@N00/2932740999

Thanks, Amar.

Any thoughts about the climatology regarding the clustering of the heavy snow years recently at Mammoth?

I've noticed that heavy snow years are often grouped in six to seven year periods in the Paradise records. Wonder why?