Snow returns to the American West. Tuesday night snow forecast courtesy of NOAA/NWS.
To say that this winter has been an interesting one is a massive understatement. The American West started off the season a little dry, before getting absolutely dumped on in December, with the Lake Tahoe area smashing its previous December snowfall record from 1970 before the month was over. Climatologist Dan McEvoy with the Western Regional Climate Center described the storm as “very beneficial” for California’s current drought conditions. However he cautioned that “the drought’s not over. We need the storms to continue through the winter.”
So far, they haven’t, and not just for California. Across the American West, snow has been scarce in 2022, with no more than a few inches here or there across the region. Last week the Kings and Queens of Corbet’s ran in “low tide” conditions as they call it at Jackson Hole, which is normally a powder factory in February. The competition ran with only a few inches of fresh snow on top of icy hardpack, certainly less than ideal conditions for navigating the tricky Corbet’s Couloir.
At “low tide,” Corbet’s Couloir goes from intimidating to downright scary. Photo: WS
However, that massive dry spell looks like it’s coming to an end. Jackson Hole picked up 12 inches of fresh powder on Sunday night (just 24 hours after I left, curse my luck). Northern Washington just scored up to 20 inches in parts of the Cascades as demonstrated by Powder Chasers, below, and the Tahoe region of the Sierras looks like it will get a much needed 10-plus inches in the next couple of days.
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Meanwhile, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico are bracing for a heavy storm system that will move in later this week, with OpenSnow predicting up to 30 inches in the next few days for resorts like Silverton, Crested Butte, and Snowmass.
That being said a few isolated pow dumps, while better than nothing, aren’t everything that the West needs. A good ‘ol atmospheric river or something of the like would go a long ways to providing the necessary snowpack to keep California, Nevada, and other parts of the region out of the extreme drought conditions we’ve had in the past couple of years. My fingers, as well as those of powder junkies and climatologists alike, are crossed.
