Monday, March 28, 2011

The Alta 200

Last week I suggested that we were about to make a run at the big 200 (i.e., a 200" base depth) at the Alta-Collins site.  An active pattern was setting up with several major trough passages.  I thought we would get close.

Indeed, it was an active week, but none of those troughs brought the major one day total.  Instead, we got a few to several inches of snow nearly every day, with 59" falling at Alta-Collins since March 20th.

Source: NWS/Alta
This made for a great week of Spring Break skiing, but daily settlement made a push to 200 impossible.  Instead, base depths increased from about 155 inches on the 20th to 174 inches at present (see light green fill).  Note the retreats after each storm as the new snow settled.

Source: MesoWest/Alta
So we sit at a fairly solid 170+ inches, but climatologically the peak snowpack at Alta-Collins occurs in mid-to-late April, so the "Alta 200" isn't over yet.  Think Snow.

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