Resort Snowfall Reporting: When to start? (Jackson Hole)

[ChrisC]

I know we have discussed this a few times - when is it appropriate to start recording winter snowfall for skier purposes? I believe Tony uses a criterion that the snow needs to stick around, so Nov 1st or so.

I have always noticed that by the time winter starts/ski area opens in late November, Jackson Hole has already banked 100 inches of snowfall at its summit location. It always appears highly disengenuous, because generally you can research snowfall by date - except for early/pre-season.

So Jackson Hole continuously spots itself 75-100 inches in pre-season snow, and then starts comparing its snowfall to every other North American ski resort, many of which begin on November 1st.

This year is not as bad as usual; Jackson is only giving itself a 50-inch head start. My issue: there has been almost zero snowfall for November.


Jackson Mountain Snow Report:

Historical Snowfall from OpenSnow

I assume Jackson Hole measures October, September, and even August snowfall. In short, I do not really respect its reporting, especially compared to Alta, Whistler and others.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I assume Jackson Hole measures October, September, and even August snowfall. In short, I do not really respect its reporting, especially compared to Alta, Whistler and others.

You may not respect the reporting but Jackson at least provides enough info to determine reality. Most importantly they display the mid-mountain number even though they only use the summit number in press releases. So we know to use the 25 inches in ChrisC's screeenshot above to start.

That page is always up and running by Nov. 1 so I can check it. This year, mid-mountain Nov. 1 showed 17 inches. Therefore mid-mountain since Nov. 1 is 8 inches.

Many areas, including Targhee this year, do not display any season-to-date snowfalls until they are open or getting close to it. Targhee's 50 inches did not materialize on its snow report until a couple of days ago. So going forward I'm going to back out the 29 inches OpenSnow showed on Oct. 31.

On Nov. 1 this year, I found 25 ski areas reporting season-to-date snowfall on their websites. I also recorded OpenSnow model estimates for 14 others.

 

[ChrisC]

You may not respect the reporting but Jackson at least provides enough info to determine reality. Most importantly they display the mid-mountain number even though they only use the summit number in press releases. So we know to use the 25 inches in ChrisC's screeenshot above to start.

My problem is not so much the numbers but how Jackson Hole presents them; it's completely dishonest and a bunch of BS Spin. They try to claim they have 500 inches of snowfall, but typically 100 inches melt off before the season has begun, since they start measuring sometime in mid-summer.

The Hobacks are likely in a 150-300-inch snowfall range and face E/SE. For all their storied greatness, their snowfall and exposure are a bit mediocre.

Soon, Jackson Hole Marketing starts promoting early season and additional snow indefinitely, comparing its snowfall to that of Whistler, Alta., Vail, Breckenridge, and a few others. And it is a total apples-to-oranges comparison:

• Jackson Hole measures snow from its highest elevation of 10k and starts measuring in the summer.
• Almost all the other ski resorts measure mid-mountain to 2/3 the way up and start in November or October at the earliest.

And here is what 50 inches of Jackson Hole early-season snow looks like:

 

[ChrisC]

Alta takes a candid and transparent approach. One can see precisely when and where snow fell.

Note: Measurements are not taken in August and September.

 

[EMSC]

Holy moley. I didn't think those web cams could actually be from today, but yikes they are!

This may be a slight outlier season, but yeah the 50 and 25 inch numbers are bad misrepresentation. I get that somewhere they probably are trying to keep detailed NWS style annual snowfall records, but that is big misrepresentation on the ski side for sure.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Jackson/Teton area snow records are excellent. You can find them here. The organization is a little weird. You select a beginning and ending calendar date (say Nov. 1 - Nov. 30), and it will give you up to 50 years of records for Novembers at 4 sites at Jackson: Rendezvous 9,580, Raymer 9,360 (the one JHMR uses in press releases), mid-mountain 8,180 (the one I use) and base 6,510. I have not compiled data for Raymer or the base but I should try to get around to it sometime.

The Hobacks are likely in a 150-300-inch snowfall range and face E/SE. For all their storied greatness, their snowfall and exposure are a bit mediocre.

The primary reason I say don't advance book Jackson after President's Week.

My problem is not so much the numbers but how Jackson Hole presents them; it's completely dishonest and a bunch of BS Spin. They try to claim they have 500 inches of snowfall, but typically 100 inches melt off before the season has begun, since they start measuring sometime in mid-summer.

While this observation is correct, it is possible to get at the truth as I have described.

Contrast with Big Sky. Recall that we were critiquing snowfall history being posted by OpenSnow, which could be sourced:
1) directly from the ski area
2) from third party "consolidator" site SnoCountry
3) using weather models as used for forecasting.

At the end of the season I sent this to Joel:

month	Oct.​	Nov.​	Dec.​	Jan. ​	Feb.​	Mar.​	Apr.​
Big Sky patrol 2024-2025 snowfall	15"​	58"​	49"​	55"​	70"​	53"​	35"​	335" total
Big Sky OpenSnow snowfall	15"​	48"​	71"​	98"​	74"​	81"​	61"​	448" total

Joel replied:

For Big Sky, note that the data for Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, and most of Apr was pulled directly from Big Sky, so any discrepancy is not due to weather models but due to what they are reporting vs what is sent to you from Patrol.

For in-season progress reports there are a very few places that do not post season-to-date snowfalls where I use OpenSnow. I realized partway through last season that I couldn't do that with Big Sky as it was running neck-and-neck with Targhee.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I should try to get around to it sometime.

Not so bad just to download each month, then sum each location. Data looks questionable before Raymer went live in 1998. But snowfall averages for the past 28 years:
433.88 at Rendezvous 9,580
453.53 at Raymer 9,360
358.81 at mid-mountain 8,180
144.41 at base 6,510

I use a 58 year average of 369.13 for Jackson based upon original mid-mountain data collected in 1992 plus annual updates since then.

As for October, Raymer average that gets into JHMR stats is 26 inches. The max was 50 in 2004, likely legit as Alta had 122 inches that month! Raymer reports negligible snow in September.