Paradise snowdepth reaches triple digits!

All week I've been playing a silly game of trying to guess when the Paradise Snowdepth would reach 100"s. It did today at 10am.<br><br>www.nwac.us/~nwac/products/OSOPVC

Me too!<br>Finally. It seems like it's been flirting with it for over a week now.<br><br>I was also wondering if anyone has a sense of how the Pineapples affected snow high on the mountain, above the freezing levels when they came through. What does 6" of rain at Paradise translate to at 11000' when the snow level is ~9000? Was the upper part of the mtn above the precip so it didnt get any snow out of it or did it dump up there? So is it possible that snow depths above ~10k are closer to normal?<br><br>Reason I ask .. we're planning on doing the Emmons in mid-June and I'm wondering if I should be bringing skis. <br><br>  

<br><br><br>I was also wondering if anyone has a sense of how the Pineapples affected snow high on the mountain, above <br><br>Reason I ask .. we're planning on doing the Emmons in mid-June and I'm wondering if I should be bringing skis. <br><br>  

<br><br>Thats a no brainer. Bring them on all trips.<br>

Mike Gauthier posts on the Rainier board on www.cascadeclimbers.com . I'd ask him, but wait a month or two. <br><br>It's my impression that snowfall in the Cascades maxes out around 8 or 9000 feet, but I'd be happy to be told this is wrong. <br><br>Mark

And from the photo's on the DOT site, the snow at Chinook Pass is stacking up.<br><br>March 14<br> <br><br><br>And same view on<br>April 13<br>

Regarding the significance of the 100" number at Paradise, I discovered a very surprising and interesting fact just a couple of days ago. In all the years that weather data has been recorded at Paradise since 1916, the snowdepth has never failed to reach at least 100" during any previous season. The lowest maximum seasonal snowdepth was in 1940-41, when the snowdepth reached 100" on Jan 26 and never broke the century mark again. In fact, the snowdepth has failed to reach 120" in only two seasons, 1940-41 and again the very next season, 1941-42, when it reached 118" on three separate days in March. Even in the severe drought year of 1976-77, the snowdepth hit 126" on April 1. For comparison, the average maximum-snowdepth reached at Paradise is 201", typically set on March 30. This is greater than the maximum average-snowdepth of 177", reached around April 1. (Yes, these two values always differ, that's what happens when multiple sharply-peaked functions are averaged together.) This histogram shows how often various seasonal maxima have occurred:<br><br> <br><br>By the way, note that the NWAC telemetry station usually reads several inches greater snowdepth than the manual NPS measurement , perhaps because it appears to be located about 100 ft higher. The official NPS number has yet to exceed 92" this season, so it still has some serious catching up to do. Despite the sustained snowfall over the past 4 weeks, this season is still likely to end up as the worst overall in the WA Cascades since 1940-41. Thankfully, it's no longer the worst ever recorded.<br><br>On skiing the Emmons: I would certainly bring skis in mid-June this year. I've skied the Emmons-Winthrop from the true summit twice, in mid-July 1999 and late July 2004 . As of now, it seems likely that snowpack conditions at middle-upper elevations in mid-June this year should be similar to late July of last year. At the very least, the Inter Glacier should offer 3500+ vft of excellent corn with minimal crevasses. The Emmons should also be relatively unbroken throughout the Corridor and up into the big bowl at 13000 ft. The entire route is likely to be a continuous ski from the summit at that time, depending on your comfort level skiing the heavily crevassed and seraced terrain near the bergschrunds at 13500 ft. <br><br>In general, spring snowdepths on the upper parts of isolated volcanoes depend largely on the extent of strong scouring winter winds, more so than the precip recorded lower down. Precip at Paradise from Sept 1 - April 15 this season has been 81", about 80% of normal for that period. So all other things being equal, snowfall and snowdepth above 9000 ft (the highest freezing levels seen this winter) should be roughly 80% of normal, too. However, this winter has seen fewer than normal major storms and overall much less strong upper levels winds, a consequence on the jet stream largely being aimed elsewhere. So one would expect upper mountain snowdepths to be over 80% of normal this year, whatever "normal" might be up there (it's hard to record snowdepths or calculate normals above treeline, where all accumulation is wind dependent). That is unless the recent storms have been accompanied by unusually strong upper level winds, which is doubtful. It's typically hurricane-force northwesterly upper level winds which cause the majority of wind scour on the volcanoes, and we haven't had too much of that this season.<br><br>

&gt; Damn rain soaked it down below 100 again &gt;<br>Amar - Great info on both the snow depth stats and the snow conditions, prospects and considerations in skiing the Emmons.<br>That, and the comments of Mark and OldHouseMan tempts me to also respond to the Emmons issue... It reminded me of a surprising simple strategy on the matter that Mike Gauthier (head climbing ranger at Rainier and also an avid backcountry boarder and more recently tele skier) suggested to me a few years ago:<br>Just load up and take your skis (or board, as the case may be) with you with you when you leave Sherman. If while climbing you get to a point where you start feeling like "I'll never enjoy skiing this stuff, I shouldn't have brought these damn boards" on the way up, just unload your skis and leave them there (well secured) alongside the boot track. Then on your way back down pick them up again and either ski down from there or carry back down as the conditions dictate. <br>That way you minimize the chances of getting to the top and saying " man, I sure wish I had brought my skis".<br>Gator said he does it that way all the time and has left his board along the trail lots of times.

Speaking of easily quantified milestones, I notice that mild-mannered moderator Ron is making steady progress towards the coveted 1000 post mark. Any interest out there in organizing a little betting pool (purely for entertainment value, of course)? My money's on late summer of this year.

Hummm...<br>Sounds lik a pool that one would certainly expect that I might participate in, wouldn't you think?

Hummm...<br>Sounds lik a pool that one would certainly expect that I might participate in, wouldn't you think?

<br><br>In my view, your participation would necessarily be, shall we say, discreet (in the sense of "capable of preserving prudent silence"). This being the case, I'm sure an arrangement might be arrived at which would be of maximum benefit to, at the very least, you and I.

<br><br>In my view, your participation would necessarily be, shall we say, discreet (in the sense of "capable of preserving prudent silence").  This being the case, I'm sure an arrangement might be arrived at which would be of maximum benefit to, at the very least, you and I.

<br><br>What did he say?

what's the consensus on conditions for tomorrow?

Visual evidence in the February-March period seemed to indicate that the snow level was much higher than 9000' on Mt. Rainier in the January 23 period. No rime at all was evident on Little Tahoma, 11,117' and rime didn't appear heavy to about 12,000-12,500' in Sunset Ampitheatre and on Sunset Ridge. Gibraltar Rock looked to be heavily rimed only on it's upper part to add confirmation. The sharp difference between bare rock and very heavy rime was very abrupt and obvious up until the recent snows.<br><br>I do believe that the snow level (if there is such a thing in these conditions) was significantly lower on Mt. Baker, perhaps 3-4,000' lower. Only the very summit pinnacle of Shuksan was rimed at that time and BC reports indicated a maximum snow level of up to 2800 m along the south coast, but with two meters of snow accumuating (along with some rain) in that period near Cayoosh Pass above 2200 m.

 My money's on late summer of this year.

<br><br>Ron has been a member since 07/18/02, which was 1,003 days ago. Since then he has posted 807 times, averaging .8045 posts per day. Ergo, I'll place my money on Ron reaching 1000 posts on December 11th 2005.

Visual evidence in the February-March period seemed to indicate that the snow level was much higher than 9000' on Mt. Rainier in the January 23 period.<br>. . .

<br><br>I don't really know what the relation is between the "rimeline" and the freezing/snow level during a storm. This seems to be a complex relation involving many unknown variables.<br><br>But during the January 16-23 period, the temperature at Paradise never exceeded 45 F while any precip was falling. So even assuming a small saturated lapse rate of 3 F per 1000 ft, this implies a maximum freezing level of 10000 ft (snow level around 9000 ft). It would be quite shocking if the snow level approached 11000-12000 ft under those conditions. Am I missing something in my calculations? The temps did reach 50 F at Paradise a few times in late January, but only on dry days. <br><br>My guess is that by the time visual observations were made in Feb-March, the numerous warm and sunny days had melted off the rime below 12000 ft, especially on the south and west sides of the mountain which were observed.<br>

Amar,<br><br>I don't think subsequent melting accounted for the lack of rime on Little T, where the evidence was most visible. There just wasn't any rime on Little T at all, indicating wet snow during the storm was above that level. What appears to be heavy rime is often wet snow in the 30-34 degree range. The freezing level at the time of the storm was very evident. The rime on the west end of Rainier, particularly in the Sunset Ampitheatre appeared to be the thickest I've ever seen (or remember seeing).<br><br>Although I use similar temperature interpolations as you do to calculate snow levels, sometimes multiple freezing levels can complicate the calculations. Quillayute soundings might be indicative of some of these inversions, but with the SSW-NNE orientation of the FL in these warm events, Quillayute soundings would probably have been more indicative of freezing levels W of Whistler. There usually appears to be about a 4 to even 6000' freezing level difference E-W across the frontal band. In the same position within the band, the freezing levels are often similar along the entire length of the band. For instance, I don't remember if this was the event, but one Pineapple this winter extended all the way from Hawaii eventually to the NE shore of Hudson's Bay as the band drifted east. So there was rain clear up in northern Ontario with temperatures near 50 degrees. <br><br><br>Edited to add: I couldn't find them but there must be archived soundings available. I would think Salem, Ore FL's would be reasonably predictative of Mt. Rainier in a SSW flow. The same air over Salem would have reached Rainier no more than an hour or two later. Roger's Pass at the time recorded rainfall&gt;2300m, but coastal BC had 2800m rainfall.

Gary, that's interesting info. An inversion could explain the unusually high FL and riming. Is there someplace to find old archived upper air soundings? The combination of Quillayute and Salem soundings would determine the FL throughout the WA Cascades pretty well, with Salem being more relevant for Rainier during such a system.<br><br>Wait a minute, I've found it at raob.fsl.noaa.gov/ . Not a user-friendly site at all, but I've managed to generate the relevant plots, covering a 24-hour period centered on the maximum precip intensity of that Pineapple Express:<br><br> UIL-72797-18-JAN-2005-00UTC.gif   SLE-72694-18-JAN-2005-00UTC.gif <br> UIL-72797-18-JAN-2005-12UTC.gif   SLE-72694-18-JAN-2005-12UTC.gif <br> UIL-72797-19-JAN-2005-00UTC.gif   SLE-72694-19-JAN-2005-00UTC.gif <br><br>The most important plots are at 18-JAN-2005-12UTC (4am PST), the real climax of that rain event, which show a near-inversion right at 0 C. Temps don't quite invert, but they do hold almost constant near 0 C from 9-11000 ft at Quillayute (UIL) and 10-12000 ft at Salem (SLE). So it certainly seems plausible that it did rain to over 11000 ft during the height of that storm. The soundings seem to support your rime observations.<br><br>It would be great to have temperature telemetry from Camp Muir to show these kind of effects in real time, with a radio link down to Paradise and the NWAC station there. A temp sensor could be mounted behind one of the huts, with wind speed and direction on top, plus perhaps a radiometer/pyranometer to show when the sun is shining up there above a cloud layer. I guess a webcam up there is way too much to hope for, and too difficult to maintain, but a weather station should be feasible if a small amount of funding can be found. I'm sure this has been considered before.<br><br><br>Edited to add: Gary, I wrote this post before seeing your edit. It's funny that we were both thinking about the Salem sounding data at the same time.<br><br>

Thanks, Amar. The sounding data are indicative. I just read recent freezing levels following a storm from the boundary between dark and snow or rime-covered rock. Since the rock is warm or is warmed quickly in a storm, it is usually an accurate indicator of the freezing level. Trees also indicate this, even in windy storms when dry snow is blown off the trees. There will usually be a line, immediately after a storm, where snow sticks to the trees. Subsequent winds will not blow this snow off. Only melting can remove it.