Results 176 to 200 of 241
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05-16-2018, 01:42 PM #176
I dont agree with this at all. For the last 3.8 decades the average snowfall for each decade has actually gone up at Mt. Baker. http://www.mtbaker.us/snow-report/snowfall-statistics
1970-80. Total yearly snowfall for the decade was 7142
80-90 Total yearly snowfall for the decade was 6057
90-00 Total yearly snowfall for the decade was 6203
00-10 Total yearly snowfall for the decade was 6376
10-current Total yearly snowfall for the last 8 winters is 5596 ~ average for the decade so far is 699.5. Thats almost to where we where in the 1970's when greenhouse gasses where arguably the highest, and in that decade we had two back to back winters of over 1000 inches (damn near two world record years in a row!)
Keep in mind this is for Mt. Baker that has a notoriously warm average temp and is quite low in elevation compared to most ski areas in N.A. and you would expect areas like Mt. Baker to see the effects of global warming first.
Finally, with the abundance of extremely high-quality used touring gear on the market, you could easily argue skiing is more affordable then it ever has been as long as you are willing to walk for your turns.
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05-16-2018, 02:00 PM #177
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05-16-2018, 02:02 PM #178
I think we have to acknowledge that the snowpack at Mt. Baker is not representative of what most of the country sees. This winter was alarmingly warm and short for the entire Western US unless you happen to live at a more northerly latitude than Jackson, WY.
And, yes, touring gear and cheap conglomerate season passes make things more affordable for dudes in their 30s who already know how to ski. But that's not how kids get introduced to the sport, especially from non-skiing families. Mom and pop hills are a thing of the past in many areas and day pass prices are insane. Wondering whether the sport is closed-off to people who are not raised by existing enthusiasts is a worthwhile exercise.
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05-16-2018, 02:03 PM #179
. When I first moved here we where open till end of May. Every season less and less people are doing spring skiing. Mountian Biking is a big reason why, and I gotta say I am part of that problem. The ski area still operates 100% off of diesel. Its ridiculously expensive just to plow the parking lot and turn the lights and sewar on at the lodge let alone power the lifts.
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05-16-2018, 02:06 PM #180
Statisitcs show that happens on average at least once a decade. The cold hard numbers prove that winters are not getting less snowy or warmer. Everytime an area has a shitty winter everyone gets all doom and gloom and says are winters are coming to an end. That simply isnt true and the stats show the opposite.
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05-16-2018, 02:08 PM #181
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05-16-2018, 02:10 PM #182
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05-16-2018, 02:26 PM #183
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05-16-2018, 02:29 PM #184
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05-16-2018, 02:33 PM #185
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05-16-2018, 02:54 PM #186
Do the cold hard numbers actually prove it though? Snowfall may have gone up, but what about Mt Baker's average temperatures throughout the winter months? I don't have that the data there, but what I do know is that in many of world wetter areas, warmer temperatures are causing more precipitation to fall, be it in the form of rain or snow. Be careful not to conflate increase in snowfall with temperature holding steady or decreasing...your response to "we are running out of cold winters" was with Mt Baker snowfall stats...those two do not necessarily run together.
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05-16-2018, 03:01 PM #187
Last time I checked the PNW over the same time period is average within a degree or two of difference. I just sent an email to Cliff Mass (head of Meteorology at UW) to see if he has the data. Regardless, total snowfall directly relates to how much powder there is to ski. Some of it may be warmer than average and some of it colder then average.
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05-16-2018, 03:14 PM #188
Here's a discussion by meteorologists at the U of Utah. It's a few years out of date, but it's not like we've had any cold winters to change the trend.
http://wasatchweatherweenies.blogspo...rends.html?m=1
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05-16-2018, 03:20 PM #189
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05-16-2018, 03:34 PM #190
I was referring to the winter snowline, you brought summer into the equation.
The elevation where the snow doesn't melt off in the winter has risen about 1600' in the last 35-40 years.
I'm not talking about total snowfall, storm totals or base depths.
The issue is the rain and warming between snow events has caused the snowline, in winter, to rise.
Talk to Hanna at Skibowl....
At 5,000-6,000 feet snow pack data will be close to historic averages. 3,000-4,000 feet shows a completely different story.
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05-16-2018, 03:36 PM #191jgb@etree Guest
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05-16-2018, 03:51 PM #192
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05-16-2018, 03:58 PM #193
Negative. Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) is the amount of water contained within the snowpack. It can be thought of as the depth of water that would theoretically result if you melted the entire snowpack instantaneously. It will be way off as it includes the water from anytime you get a winter rain storm, that then freezes that rain into the snowpack as well. Plus the vast majority of ski areas are not measuring SWE and I dont know of any that have historical SWE data going back that far.
Besides I dint really give a shit what the density of the snow is. if its 12 inches of newI'm stoked and I would way rather have 18" of new cement then if its 6 inches of dust and I'm hitting yesterdays moguls.
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05-16-2018, 04:10 PM #194Registered User
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snowlines are completely related to snowfall and the fact is that snow isn't falling at the same low elevations as it used to. I'm sorry that the snowfall data you refer to is from ski areas that have an incentive to measure from the deepest and highest spots on their perspective mountains.
I applaud powder for taking a progressive stance and tackling hard to swallow topics for the ski industry such as climate change. Sticking your head in the dirt like ski journal has supposedly chosen to do only does the ski industry a disservice.
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05-16-2018, 04:20 PM #195glocal
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You're right on the money with every word, Gunder. Once Steve Casimiro, then Leslie Anthony walked away from Powder because the conglomerates started sucking the money out of the top jobs, the writing was on the wall. Those know-better-than-the-fucking-skiers assholes from said title bundling media giants (who went belly up in the end) didn't give a fuck about what made Powder what it was. And it was indeed The Bible of skiing. The newby editors had little wordly experience nor the balls to stand up against the bullshit these corps ran down their throats, most of which involved doing it all with no money. There was nothing worse than seeing Powder reduced to the paper and thickness of a fucking comic book. And by the time the money had to buy better paper to retain any readership, the old hands had walked and a consecutive tide of greenhorns came along with their brainfart attempts to remake what didn't need remaking, poor Steve what'shisname that caused the mass migration here being a prime example.
DT did okay but once he left it really went to shit. I get free issues and didn't even bother calling in a change of address last year, marking the first year in 40 years of my reading and/or writing for Powder that I didn't care enough to read a single issue. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who no longer gave a shit about watching it circle the drain. When young know nothing editors are willing to take $30K a year while living in SoCal to spice up their resumes and feel important, shit was bound to go south. And yes, I expensed the hookers and blow so they could get a feel of how much it cost me to get stuck in Eastern Europe with four or five dead broke ski bums while getting the story of the year. Needless to say, that Steve guy editor totally shit himself when he got the invoice and receipts because he was young and quite inexperienced.
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05-16-2018, 04:23 PM #196
Yeah, I know what SWE is. Total snowfall is simply not a metric that hydrologists use. It's useful for ski area marketing, but not much else. If you want to conduct a rigorous study of snowfall and precipitation trends you don't use potentially biased total snowfall data from a handful of ski areas, you use data from the 800+ SNOTEL sites in the west. SNOTEL reports temperature, total precip, total snow depth, and SWE.
Winter rainstorms and high-density snow would actually bias SWE towards your position (snowfall is not decreasing), not away from it. SWE would report lower declines than total snowfall in those scenarios and mask a trend of declining yearly snowfall totals.
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05-16-2018, 04:36 PM #197
Ask anyone - ANYONE - who has spent time in Tahoe and Sierra over the last few decades and they will all tell you that while even back in the day there were bad drought years, the average snow line has gone up over time. It's just a fact and not worth arguing. A maggot recently published a pretty comprehensive and undeniable paper on this very subject. You know, actual data and not anecdotal bullshit.
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05-16-2018, 04:38 PM #198j'ai des grands instants de lucididididididididi
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05-16-2018, 04:42 PM #199Registered User
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05-16-2018, 04:51 PM #200
Or Mt. Shasta. The ski area there hasn't opened three out of the last four years (OK, technically they did open this year, but it was a couple of barely there groomers for a couple days, for practical purposes they didn't open). I grew up skiing there and that simply never happened.
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