# MTNS @ 22% of average snowfall.



## pinemnky13

I wonder if waterworld in denver will let you bring a raft in the wave pool this summer if this keeps up


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## asleep.at.the.oars

I wonder where they get that number? It's low, but not that low...

ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CO/Snow/snow/watershed/daily/basinplotstate12.gif


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## snakester

It will catch up with itself. Feb. and March are going to be huge snowfall months. Keep the faith.


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## Andy H.

The reporters and editors were all humanities majors and have a hard time with numbers that don't make as dramatic a story?



asleep.at.the.oars said:


> I wonder where they get that number? It's low, but not that low...
> 
> ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CO/Snow/snow/watershed/daily/basinplotstate12.gif


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## Tele-axel

Yeah not exactly a record snowfall yet this year but nowhere near a 22% snowpack

ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CO/Snow/snow/watershed/daily/co_update_snow.pdf


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## Rich

CBrown said:


> That's what I heard on 9news. Whose got some stats to make us feel optimistic?


77.6% of all statistics quoted on the internet are made up.


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## lhowemt

The other day the local paper in missoula referred to this year's snowpack being on par with last years. What a bunch of morons. While some of the high elevation snotels have decent swe, there's hardly any snow betweens the valleys and them. Ridiculous media hype the other way (flooding makes great news)


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## lhowemt

Boy can i relate to other people's typos now that i use an iphone. Sheesh.


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## st2eelpot

*NOAA's National Snow Analysis*

National Snow Analyses - NOHRSC - The ultimate source for snow information

January 11, 2012
Area Covered By Snow:	15.8%
Area Covered Last Month:	27.7%
Snow Depth
Average:	1.4 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	997.6 in
Std. Dev.:	6.1 in
Snow Water Equivalent
Average:	0.3 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	521.7 in
Std. Dev.:	1.7 in


January 11, 2011
Area Covered By Snow:	69.4%
Area Covered Last Month:	33.1%
Snow Depth
Average:	6.9 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	897.2 in
Std. Dev.:	11.4 in
Snow Water Equivalent
Average:	1.4 in
Minimum:	0.0 in
Maximum:	434.9 in
Std. Dev.:	3.0 in

These are their numbers for the nation as a whole right now. If you go to the web site they have the 48 states broken into 18 different regions, so the more detailed numbers depend on where you are looking of course. You can do the math from there. 

Snow water equivalent was 1.4in last year for this time and is .3in this year right now.


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## caspermike

Wyoming snow report
NRCS/WRDS Snowpack Data
Montana snow report
http://www.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrds/nrcs/updatesur/update-mt.html
Doesn't look to horrible yet it's only January. Water equiv is still up. But Colorado is a different story..
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/report...Colorado&format=SNOTEL+Snowpack+Update+Report


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## DanOrion

Pretty dire, nothing to be optimistic about. Take Copper Mountain Snowtel:
Copper Mountain (415) - Site Information and Reports
1979-2011 Avg for 1/12 - 7.15 in Snow Water Equivalent (SWE)
1/12/12 - 3.9 in SWE (54% average)
1/12/02 - 6.1 in SWE
1/12/04 - 5.8 in SWE
1/12/11 - 10.6 in SWE

I'm sure there are individual snowtel sites that are at 22% of average.


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## yesimapirate

Rich said:


> 77.6% of all statistics quoted on the internet are made up.


I found on the google that it's only 68.35917% made up. Where are you getting your information??? I think you're full of crap!


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## Jones

22% is probably not looking at what it should be right now, but looking at where right now is compared to peak. Using that logic you can get to a number around 22%. Its bad stats, but whats new with the news.


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## deepsouthpaddler

My personal snowpack stoke is 17% of average. Waiting on powder is a crummy winter sport.


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## montuckyhuck

My bet is that the second 50% of winter we will receive 104% more snow than last winter 300% above average snowpack. of course i could be 100% wrong but I sure hope not. I would be like 200% percent more stoked than I am right now if we even got 60% more snow. Hey ihoemt, will I see you out on the Blackfoot when it spikes at 15,000 again? that was 100% awesome last spring.


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## caseybailey

lhowemt said:


> Boy can i relate to other people's typos now that i use an iphone. Sheesh.


Those things are awesome. They tried to figure out a way to track people, but had trouble selling the whole microchip in the head thing. They realized it was much easier to just ask people to carry them around. I think the typos are well worth it when you consider how much easier you've made it for the world to track your where abouts...


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## caspermike

caseybailey said:


> Those things are awesome. They tried to figure out a way to track people, but had trouble selling the whole microchip in the head thing. They realized it was much easier to just ask people to carry them around. I think the typos are well worth it when you consider how much easier you've made it for the world to track your where abouts...


yep we are going show up as little red dots on the militarys radar when the world turns......................


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## wasatchbill

you can turn the tracking off if you want. 
How to Stop Your Smartphone from Constantly Tracking Your Location

That cloud seeding article comes to mind, from a couple weeks ago (as mentioned, it doesn't work when there's no clouds). Those cloud seeding operations seem questionable from a karmic perspective.


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## lmyers

Currently the Arkansas Valley as a whole is sitting at 81% of average, but that includes the Sangre's which are over 100% of average....however we are only at 39% of peak.

Independence Pass (Brumely) is at 58% of average and Fremont Pass is at 56%.

This is the least amount of snow I have seen on the 14'ers in mid-January in 10 years of living up here.

Here are a couple of pics taken Tuesday, 1/10/2012:

Mt. Princeton's south face,










Mt. Antero's west face,










No where near enough snow to ski them...

I am keeping my fingers crossed that when the weather pattern changes it snows until June...


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## caspermike

Those are west and south facing slopes why don't you ski the slopes that will collect the snow? North and east are usually the way to go honestly and the sun doesn't have as much effect


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## lmyers

caspermike said:


> Those are west and south facing slopes why don't you ski the slopes that will collect the snow? North and east are usually the way to go honestly and the sun doesn't have as much effect


That's what I was doing Mike. It just so happens that the north face had good views of Princeton and Antero...

2200 vertical on the north face of 13,500 Boulder Mountain...

The point was, that by this time in the year those slopes usually have enough snow to ski, and this year their virtually bare.


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## Ricky NM

Looks like we're in for a pattern change according to snowforecast.com. These guys usually do a pretty good job with their long range forecast. Here's the long range forecast for Winter Park:

"An arctic front and strong jet stream push south out of Canada across most of the country, and especially the northwest US early-mid next week. It looks like we have a developing very strong jet stream and very cold air to the north of it across Japan and the northwest Pacific. This stream of winds pushes across the Pacific, undercutting an expected high pressure ridge across western Alaska, pulling a lot of Pacific moisture from off the Pacific and pushing it across the west via shortwave weather systems. After plastering the northwest US with some seriously heavy snowfall, these systems are expected to start affecting Colorado/ Utah with some possibly significant snow storms next Thursday/ Friday, but mainly next weekend. Significant snow storms are expected to finish off the month of January, distinguishing the last 2 weeks from the first 2 by a large margin (of snow totals)."

Hopefully the pattern holds after Jan, and northern CO snow totals start to look more like a typical La Nina year.


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## Ifloat

I am not sure where that 20% number came from. If you go to NRCS National Water and Climate Center | SNOTEL Data & Products you can use the left bar and pick your state. If you pick Colorado it will give you a bunch of choices of reports to look at (precipitation, snowpack, reservoir and most important Streamflow forecast) This data uses Snotel sites, and as of Feb 1st they include more snow course information. Snow courses are additional data points within watersheds that are manually measured, where Snotel sites are automated. The last that was posted was the state of Co was about 70% of average, but this number varies by watershed. I think we all know that the snow is lacking, but the snowiest months are still to come. And the media likes to tell a grime story, and they are not always factual.


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## chepora

Time to buy some ice tools


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## captishmael

Snow pack numbers this early in the season don't mean squat. But still...

I have a season pass I have not used yet
Last year there was little snow on the Front Range, Lots in the Mts
We have had more in the lowlands so far than we had all of last year
2 or 3 inches in the mountains make the front page
It is almost the end of January. Something should be happening already
Is it time to put skid plates on the bottom of my boat?


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## deepsouthpaddler

captishmael said:


> Snow pack numbers this early in the season don't mean squat.


What? To me the numbers look like the worst snowpack in a decade, and one of the handful of the worst in the last 30 yrs, and we are halfway through the snowpack building season (typically mid Oct to mid Apr).

We passed "early season" a while ago... 

I tend to be an optimist, but the numbers are significant, and at this point they suck. I'm hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst.


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## David L

Yeah, it's very frustrating. We knew it wouldn't be as good as last year, that was fantastic. But c'mon, not like this!


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## montuckyhuck

Just rode 40+ fresh inches at Lost Trail!! Starting to look better.


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## DanOrion

deepsouthpaddler said:


> I tend to be an optimist, but the numbers are significant, and at this point they suck. I'm hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst.


I agree. We've got a third the SWE of last year. On par with 2004. 

2012 will be the year to learn every single move on Bailey and Gore.


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## powdahound76

Lots of snow coming in the next few days it looks like. Hopefully the pattern changes like this for the rest of the season. I dont need no blue skies to ski, just lots of pow. The 5 day shows at least decent chance of snow every day up in the mtns. Blue skies can come back in May, I like paddling in the sun.


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## zipbak

Everyone is talking about the dry winter. I hear a lot of comments from folks pretending that this winter is not unusual and that we’ll get plenty of snow in March and don’t worry. I’m not buying it. 

National Resources Conservation Service and the Colorado Snotel sites have a lot of data, but I think you have to know more than I do to really understand what they are saying. Another approach is to find some clues as to what might be happening, then look at the Snotel data to make an informed statement about how dry this winter is. A good starting point is here:
http://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/ahistoryofdrought.pdf
This paper shows that the answer to “how dry is it?” is complicated and defies a simple answer but, in general, from this paper you can learn that 60-70 % of average is very dry. Also, you can say that since the Dust Bowl (1930-1940), there have been three very dry periods in Colorado. They are 1974-1977 including the dries winter on record in ’76-77, fall 1980-the end of summer 1981, and of course 2002, a year many of us remember from the Ark peaking for a day or 2 at 500 cfs in May, and the Hayman and many other fires. 

Then check out this Aspen times article. Snowpack at 71 percent of 30-year average | AspenTimes.com that quotes NRCS:
“This is the fourth-lowest Jan. 1 snowpack measured on the last 30 years and the lowest since Jan. 1, 2002, when the snowpack was at 65 percent of average,” the conservation service, the federal agency that conducts the Colorado Snow Survey, said in a statement.

A NRCS website has snowpack maps for years 2012 back to 1994. It is interesting to compare the 2002 (big dry year) with 2012 so far. 
The 2002 map shows most of the high country 70-90% of average snowfall, but with extreme dryness, (less than 50%) at lower elevations. This compares with the current (2012) map that shows the high country at 50-70% of average with lower elevations at 70-90% (or more) and remarkably, much of summit County at less than 50%. Check it out here:
Access Snowpack Maps | Colorado NRCS

Now, if you want to delve into the plethora of Snotel data for your particular powder stash, Snow - All Products | Colorado NRCS) be my guest. My conclusion is that with the snowpack this low at the end of January, we ain’t coming back to anywhere near a normal year. 

One year doesn’t make a trend, but let’s hope this isn’t a new normal.


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## mtgreenheads

Excellent post Zipback. I'm a wildland firefighter, and there are pieces of my soul in Colorado after 2002.


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## lmyers

Great post Zipbak. 

I was comparing snowpack maps from this year and 2002 as well, and it is looking very similar....one positive compared to '02 though is that generally all the reservoirs in the state are full. So even if the melt is similar to '02 we should get a decent amount of dam release....however, this certainly won't help next year if the pattern doesn't change.


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## Ifloat

Here is the Basin outlook report from the Snotel folks. It has snowpack averages and most important the streamflow forecast .
www.co.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/fcst/state/current/monthly/data/reportselection.html


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## Jensjustduckie

That is depressing


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## Jahve

I doubt at this point that we will have 30+ days of here on the Ark with the water over 3000cfs. Then again that is not even close to the norm. 

This link shows more what I see where I have been lately. While not a epic year the snow pack is starting to get better. In fact had a couple of great days riding pow in the BC last week. 

NWCC - SNOTEL Year-to-Date Precipitation Update Graph

In Colorado snow pack is 68% to 103% depending on where you are.


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## David L

I'll be satisfied with any number of days over 3000, never mind 30 of them. We'll see how the melt happens - quickly or slowly.

Dang - my ducky might get more use than usual.


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## JBL

Check it: ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CO/Snow/snow/watershed/daily/co_update_snow.pdf


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## lmyers

Ifloat said:


> Here is the Basin outlook report from the Snotel folks. It has snowpack averages and most important the streamflow forecast .
> www.co.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/fcst/state/current/monthly/data/reportselection.html


From that report:

"The Arkansas River at Salida is expected to 
flow at 77 percent of average this spring and summer and the Arkansas 
River at Pueblo is expected to reach 71 percent of average."

I wonder what an "average" peak streamflow is at Salida?.....


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