Snowload, anyone? This year has been so snow-filled for some ski and snowboard resorts that it’s actually too much. We never thought that could be an issue; who doesn’t love deep powder? Yet the amount of snow at some resorts has forced them to close temporarily when conditions are unsafe. Keep in mind that the average cubic foot of snow weighs 15 pounds and compacted snow can even weigh 20 pounds (this South Lake Tahoe’s large grocery store’s roof collapsed under the weight!)
We're not joking when we say it's deep up here! https://t.co/z3Yo97XchX
— UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab (@UCB_CSSL) March 12, 2023
We reached out to three major resorts in the U.S. (Colorado, California and Vermont) to see what conditions they’re facing this year. There’s a true science to determining the base depth, but we’ll let the resorts tell you that!
First, at Tahoe, where a famous statue in Truckee, CA marks the 22-foot accrued snowfall that trapped the Donner Party in the winter of 1846-47, researchers at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory perform the snow measuring. The lab is located in Donner Pass and researchers there take manual measurements at 8am each morning and update the website by 9am on days with snowfall. Daily precipitation is recorded at midnight. The lab’s been measuring since 1946 with just a few years missed. This year’s snowpack? Brace yourselves: it’s 221 percent of what the average snowfall has been since the lab started measuring. The Tahoe region boasts a dozen ski resorts, and their base depths currently range from 55 inches (Diamond Peak) to 240 inches (Sugarbowl).
A photo of students in a snow well so deep that three of them stood on a ladder only slightly overlapping, taken at Soda Springs, did well on social media. The lab retweeted it with the notation, “We’re not joking when we say it’s deep up here!”
We reached out to the lab for comment and did get an initial response from lead scientist and manager Dr. Andrew Schwartz, and later then this auto-reply explaining why email response times might lag: “Right now our priority is keeping the lab operational as we deal with the challenges of increased snow loads, rain-on-snow and potential flooding, and instrumentation maintenance. Please note: We have lost our landline telephone due to a tree falling on the line, so communication is limited to email for the time being.” Yikes! Things are dire in Tahoe!
Moving on to a central state, Colorado’s Vail Mountain now has a base depth of 70 inches—and it too is experiencing higher snowpack than average. According to John Plack, senior communications manager at Vail Mountain & Beaver Creek Resort, “Vail Mountain is currently at 112% season snowpack compared to average.” The mountain has experienced 291 inches of snow for the current season, which is “more than we reported all of last season,” he says.
At Vail Mountain, a fixed stake at a protected mid-mountain area lets people take measurements; there’s a camera on it so it can be read remotely, but the area is also maintained to ensure accuracy. There’s also a 24-hour measuring stake that is moveable.
And moving east, to Stowe, VT, the base depth is currently 30 inches. “Most people may think to Google ‘weather in Stowe,’ but if you do that, you’re going to get the weather in the village which can be very different from what’s happening at 4,395 feet, the summit elevation of Mount Mansfield,” cautions Courtney DiFiore, senior communications manager, northeast, for Vail Resorts which also operates the Stowe Mountain Resort. She says that Mount Mansfield has weather stations near its summit that monitor hourly or daily data such as wind speed, temperature, precipitation and snowfall. The mountain’s data is very different from recreational forecasts in other parts of the state.
DiFiore says guests love to watch the snow stake camera. The first snow stake was placed on Mount Mansfield in 1954, and data has been kept nearly daily since then.
Mother Nature might love us a little too much this year. But that's all right so long as we can safely bomb down the mountain!