Western North America Conditions 2025/26

From https://www.seattletimes.com/life/o...esort-will-open-saturday-in-limited-capacity/ "Crystal Mountain Resort will open for the winter Saturday with a 1,000-vehicle cap on capacity" vs. "resort’s capacity of approximately 3,000 parking spaces."

Another story in Seattle Times says that when they get snow Stevens Pass will re-open. And even though Seattle-area passholders will have a 100+ mile each way detour to get there, Vail will not be giving refunds at this time. I'd quote more but seems like I quickly ran into a page limit on my laptop that I didn't get on my iPad.
 
Sbooker said:
Whitewater grouped in with those four?
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Whitewater is farther north and more importantly has base elevation 5,400 feet, though the Glory chair's base is 4,600. It gets as much snow as Fernie and far less rain.
 
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tseeb said:
From https://www.seattletimes.com/life/o...esort-will-open-saturday-in-limited-capacity/ "Crystal Mountain Resort will open for the winter Saturday with a 1,000-vehicle cap on capacity" vs. "resort’s capacity of approximately 3,000 parking spaces."

Another story in Seattle Times says that when they get snow Stevens Pass will re-open. And even though Seattle-area passholders will have a 100+ mile each way detour to get there, Vail will not be giving refunds at this time. I'd quote more but seems like I quickly ran into a page limit on my laptop that I didn't get on my iPad.
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I've got a reservation at Crystal on Monday and will report here afterward. Baker just announced that they're opening to pass holders tomorrow (Sunday) and to the general public on Monday. They're claiming 91% open tomorrow, which is totally believable if you look at their latest snow report video — it's amazing how one storm cycle can turn everything around. 86" at 1:00pm Saturday, still snowing heavily.
 
I just booked our lodging at Mammoth, 1/2-1/6 refundable till Thursday night so if the storm doesn't pan out, we'll have flexibility. Praying the snow happens. Just looking at some Tahoe webcams, wow, bare ground at mid mountain and pouring rain.
 
Rain/snow line in the Wasatch forecast:
766327115-lxeWi0doI4JBdPbEwLRChdIf3DlhhfsoA2qQcbnr.png

The Wasatch problem remains that it is consistently on the edge of storms with no real direct hits so far. And when it's on the southern edge like the above forecast the rain/snow line is higher than normal.
 
Last night's progress report is here. The West overall is at 61% of snowfall, but that includes the 135% in western Canada. Utah is currently at 32% of average snowfall though 1-2 feet are predicted over the holidays. That could move Alta (42 inches so far) from second worst Nov/Dec behind 1976-77 (30 inches) to third worst behind 1980-81 (68 inches). Colorado is at 48%, comparable to its other worst starts in 1976-77, 1981-82 and 2011-12, and less than foot is forecast over the holidays. Oregon is at about 15%, and even with 1+ foot predicted soon is a lock for its second worst Nov/Dec to 1976-77.

Yesterday Lake Louise bragged of record season to date snowfall, now 159 inches including October. Lake Louise's Nov-Apr season average is 175 inches. Its record high was 277 in 2011-12, remembered here mainly for being one of Colorado's worst (A-Basin closed in April), including record lows worse than 1976-77 at Winter Park and Berthoud Pass.
 
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Mammoth reported 13" new yesterday and 38" today. Last time I checked they were only running 4 lifts: Village Gondola and chairs 8, 15 and 17. "Due to ongoing heavy snowfall and storm conditions, Main Lodge will be closed on Christmas Day. Our operations crew is prioritizing opening lifts and terrain at Canyon and Eagle Lodge."

Edit to add they've opened chairs 4 and 21 by 11 AM.

Kirkwood reports 21" new today, but home page says "Due to forecasted high winds, heavy snowfall, and high avalanche hazard, Kirkwood is closed today (12/25/25) for the safety of guests and employees. Multiple feet of snow are expected, setting us up for excellent skiing and riding through the holiday week and continued terrain expansion. Merry Christmas, friends."

228 mph gusts reported last night at 310 and 330 AM and there is also some missing data at https://www.weather.gov/wrh/timeseries?site=KWSIX&hours=72 including at 355 AM when wind (not gust) of 200 mph was reported. It was very windy about that time at my house in San Jose, but nothing like at Kirkwood.
 
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It's not good for the SoCal ski areas, 100% rain yesterday and all of them are closed today. Mt. High is closed indefinitely due to road damage to Hwy 2 in Wrightwood. It has not been raining here for at least 12 hours and the second round of storms Friday/Saturday are predicted rain/snow mix here and not as strong as yesterday.
 
jasoncapecod said:
I think I mentioned this about a week ago
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I believe you said that about the Wasatch, not Colorado! :icon-smile:

If this pans out, will it be a "first in several generations" event? That's the longstanding conventional wisdom about the I-70 resorts -- that they're too high to get rain during winter.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
I believe you said that about the Wasatch, not Colorado! :icon-smile:

If this pans out, will it be a "first in several generations" event? That's the longstanding conventional wisdom about the I-70 resorts -- that they're too high to get rain during winter.
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i did. i didn't have the balls to mention Colo even though the numbers looked like rain. i didn't believe it could happen.
 
Rain/snow line in Colorado today is 9,500+ today, falling to 8,000 tomorrow and 7,000 Saturday per OpenSnow. Fortunately precipitation forecast is negligible until tomorrow night. Aspen, Vail and Steamboat have purple mixed precipitation icons on their OpenSnow forecasts for today, but with low probabilities. Summit County is farther east, higher, colder and does not show the purple icons. Jackson has the purple icons today with snow level of 7,000 feet. Last week and yesterday it rained in the Tetons to 9,000+.

I was in Aspen in March 2004 at the end of a 3 week warm and dry spell. Our last night a storm came in and rained to 10,000 feet.

While Utah's main issue is drought, there has been some rain (up to 9,500 yesterday!) and almost no snowmaking opportunities below 8,000 feet. Thus the World Cup relocation announcement.
 
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jamesdeluxe said:
If this pans out, will it be a "first in several generations" event? That's the longstanding conventional wisdom about the I-70 resorts -- that they're too high to get rain during winter.
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Probably not unprecedented, but extremely rare for Summit county colo. Places like Aspen, Vail, Steamboat it is rare for rain during winter but does happen at those lower bases and lower parts of those mtns every 5-ish years or so.

Have set new high temp records in Denver past couple of days (over 70F). Supposed to cool way down starting this weekend as a stubborn high pressure starts to move east from Texas. That high has spun warm air in and also completely blocked storm track from Colo for a couple weeks now.
 
EMSC said:
Probably not unprecedented, but extremely rare for Summit county colo. Places like Aspen, Vail, Steamboat it is rare for rain during winter but does happen at those lower bases and lower parts of those mtns every 5-ish years or so.

Have set new high temp records in Denver past couple of days (over 70F). Supposed to cool way down starting this weekend as a stubborn high pressure starts to move east from Texas. That high has spun warm air in and also completely blocked storm track from Colo for a couple weeks now.
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I recall encountering rain at Crested Butte about 10 years ago in mid February. I think it was relatively light and not typical of a eastern soaking winter rain.
 
tseeb said:
Avalanche at Mammoth early on day after Christmas injured two patrollers and kept mountain closed.
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Mammoth sure is developing a bad rep for unsafe avi control procedures. They should have a much better system in place by now. Injuries and deaths to Patrol almost every year recently. Not good.
 
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