jamesdeluxe
Administrator
With 40 inches over the past week, Targhee's snow report has them past the 200-inch mark. With record-breaking snowfalls in the Sierras, are any of the Tahoe resorts near that number?
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December Snow Dumps and Open Terrain for Christmas
- Thread starter jamesdeluxe
- Start date
Here's OpenSnow's tally for the Sierra as of yesterday.
Many places are over 200 inches for December alone, though that is the whole season for places under 8,000 feet that melted out in November. The above numbers are nearly all upper mountain. Mine will be updated Saturday and are generally be mid-mountain if available and exclude October except for Mammoth, which was continuously open in November while Tahoe areas were not open at all.
Overall season-to-date totals are higher in the Sierra than any other ski region. Only in the last day or two have many people been able to ski it due to road and lift closures though. Since the big storm cycles started Dec. 13, Dec. 17-19 was the only window of clear weather and the Tahoe areas were not completely covered by then.
Many of these storms have had difficulty pushing inland or even to the leeward side of some mountains.
Average open for holidays: Jackson 81%, Big Sky 80%. Park City 70%, Breck 70%, Vail 82%
Open this Christmas: Jackson 44%, Big Sky 48%, Park City 28%, Breck 29%, Vail 42%
Open today Dec. 30: Jackson 67% , Big Sky 58%, Park City 43%, Breck 45%, Vail 51%
Nearly everyone in the western US is catching up rapidly from the dry November. But the farther inland/leeward side the ski area, the slower the process seems to be. Snow stability is also an obvious concern as the storms continue. Maybe by early next week the numbers above will be much closer to normal.
Many places are over 200 inches for December alone, though that is the whole season for places under 8,000 feet that melted out in November. The above numbers are nearly all upper mountain. Mine will be updated Saturday and are generally be mid-mountain if available and exclude October except for Mammoth, which was continuously open in November while Tahoe areas were not open at all.
Overall season-to-date totals are higher in the Sierra than any other ski region. Only in the last day or two have many people been able to ski it due to road and lift closures though. Since the big storm cycles started Dec. 13, Dec. 17-19 was the only window of clear weather and the Tahoe areas were not completely covered by then.
Many of these storms have had difficulty pushing inland or even to the leeward side of some mountains.
Average open for holidays: Jackson 81%, Big Sky 80%. Park City 70%, Breck 70%, Vail 82%
Open this Christmas: Jackson 44%, Big Sky 48%, Park City 28%, Breck 29%, Vail 42%
Open today Dec. 30: Jackson 67% , Big Sky 58%, Park City 43%, Breck 45%, Vail 51%
Nearly everyone in the western US is catching up rapidly from the dry November. But the farther inland/leeward side the ski area, the slower the process seems to be. Snow stability is also an obvious concern as the storms continue. Maybe by early next week the numbers above will be much closer to normal.
Colorado's most bizarre December weather in 2021 had nothing to do with snow.
I was suspicious due to staying with Richard's daughter Joy and husband Tim Sept. 8-10, 2020. They live in Superior, SW of the McCaslin exit from Hwy 36, close to dead center in the map above. I called Richard this morning and he said their entire development of 331 homes burned to the ground. They had just a few minutes to evacuate. How far away from this does EMSC live?
I was suspicious due to staying with Richard's daughter Joy and husband Tim Sept. 8-10, 2020. They live in Superior, SW of the McCaslin exit from Hwy 36, close to dead center in the map above. I called Richard this morning and he said their entire development of 331 homes burned to the ground. They had just a few minutes to evacuate. How far away from this does EMSC live?
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More on ski area staffing issues from Mt. Baldy's website today:
EMSC
Well-known member
Well I will start with the fact that that Costco, Petsmart, etc.. right next to that development you stayed in, is "my" Costco and Petsmart. My house is about two miles North East (right) of the furthest East tongue; that at the end was burning open fields.
Uncomfortably close of course, but far enough that my neighborhood was a couple hundred yards from the pre-evacuation zone. I drove right by the fire coming down from Eldora that day on S Boulder Road (the white, straight line just north of the northernmost extent). The thing that doesn't come across in the media reports as well is how wild the winds were vs just strong. Yes they were very strong, but also very, very wild. eg 40 mph one second and then 100+ the next. Thought my windshield was going to blow in a couple times and a few trees snapped off 20 feet up the trunk as examples due to the extreme changes in gusts.
I can say that the affected areas/neighborhoods are still all blocked off by national guard troops and that within about a mile of any burned areas the smell is pretty bad even in an enclosed car. 991 houses gone in a day...
jamesdeluxe
Administrator
This Costco video is fascinating at :36 -- people more concerned with wheeling purchases to their cars than getting the hell out of there.
How many lanes across is the Boulder Turnpike through that stretch?
ChrisC
Well-known member
That you can have hurricane-force driven winds, a firestorm, in late December and in Colorado .....not sure if this is climate change......or just climate extremism.
Glad you and your family avoided this sad tragedy.
EMSC
Well-known member
Colorado is very much a study in climate extremism. I've mtn biked in shorts in the morning followed by heavy snow falling in the afternoon multiple times in November over the years for example. Neither the dryness nor the huge wind events are really all that unusual for here (eg not an everyday thing, but at least several times per year for big Chinook winds). But Superior for example was little more than a couple hundred people 20 years ago vs 12,000-ish today. So growth of population is also a huge part of the story. 20 years ago there wouldn't have been anything for a fire to burn other than grasslands on the south side of the US36.
That said, December is a bit late for such a fire event with no snow on the ground. Winter in Colo seems to have shifted most, but not all years to dryer starts and longer wet and cold cycle into spring months.
The US36 turnpike is 3 lanes each direction, but also with VERY wide shoulders (almost like they built it to add an extra lane easily someday). The fire got blown across that ultrawide concrete barrier in at least 2 spots (blown from S side Superior to N side into Louisville).
I understand some of the shoppers inside still pushing carts around, but not once outside. Kinda like the people that try to get their overhead bags in a plane crash... Inside the store you've gone in to shop on a windy, but bluebird day; then randomly people start screaming to get out and you have no idea why or what is going on until you get outside....
One guy I've never heard of has several of the better short vids IMHO:
To give a sense of why there is no way to fight the fire initially. Once one home catches fire the whole neighborhood is pretty much toast.
Best video of the craziness of the winds - especially in the early hours of the fire
jamesdeluxe
Administrator
Here's how fast it spread:
And then there's the Chuck E Cheese clip:
And then there's the Chuck E Cheese clip:
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Vail Resorts posts are moved here.
Those winds are stronger than we see though. Manmade influence to me seems more that the houses (and perhaps trees planted near them) provide more fuel than when these places were all grasslands.
I'll hazard a guess that Chinook winds are a feature of foothill/western Great Plains climate, and that like California's Santa Ana/Diablo winds most frequent in the fall and winter months. Winter is also the driest and windiest season in Denver.
Those winds are stronger than we see though. Manmade influence to me seems more that the houses (and perhaps trees planted near them) provide more fuel than when these places were all grasslands.
Can't argue with that as we visited EMSC on Sept. 9 after a snowstorm. There are finer points of climate extremism. The western Great Plains have extreme temperature volatility. Coastal California has not much temperature volatility but extreme precipitation volatility.