I haven't been touring due to a foot injury and haven't been in Big Cottonwood Canyon for a couple of months. We went to Brighton and Solitude today for a few hours of laps today, however, as my son is saving his last Alta/Snowbird Ikon day for what he hopes will be a powder day.
The day of peak daily median snowpack at the Brighton SNOTEL is April 16. At the Mill D North SNOTEL it is April 1st. So to see the snowpack so devastated was quite remarkable. South aspects are bare, even to the summit of Reynolds Peak.
And elsewhere the snowpack is remarkably thin for this time of year. Below is an extreme example on the Solbright trail from Solitude to Brighton, which is on a south aspect. The end is nigh for the Big Cottonwood "Interconnect."
Most of January and February were very dry and there was no March miracle. In fact, March provided a good example of how intensifying warm waves are altering the snow hydrology of the Wasatch Range. The snow water equivalent graph for Brighton is below. From 1 to 22 March, it increased 3.2 inches. The increase in median snowpack water equivalent in that period based on the previous 30 years of records was 2.1 inches, so we were doing decently during that period. However, the last March heat wave resulted in a 2 inch decline.
The net for the month of March ended up being only 1.7 inches. Median is 3.9 inches. What a disaster.
So Jordanelle most likely is not going to hit 100% this year?
ReplyDelete