A snowboarder scoring on Friday, before the pow turned to rain. Brad Andrew photo.
As we reported, over the past 10 days, the Mount Baker Ski Area in Washington has received an absolutely absurd amount of snow, pulling down over 12 feet of the white stuff in just 10 days.
But, weather in the Pacific Northwest is nothing if not extreme, and temperatures quickly climbed late in the weekend and all of that snow turned to rain, dramatically increasing the risk of avalanches and forcing Mount Baker to shut down all operations for two days.
"We received 155 inches in 10 days; that is a pretty crazy amount of snow," Amy Trowbridge, the director of marketing for Mount Baker told TGR. "I went back through our records and we did have some comparable stretches during our world record snowfall year, but it's still an amazing amount of snow."
The "world record" year Trowbridge is referencing is the 1998-1999 season, where Mount Baker set the world record for the snowiest season on record by recording an astounding 1,140 inches of snowfall that season.
While the closure might have been unfortunate for any powderhounds looking to score, the staff at Mount Baker expected it as they were monitoring weather forecasts.
"We started posting stuff on our website on Friday afternoon that we would likely close," said Trowbridge. "We look at the forecasts from NOAA and the Northwest Avalanche Center to gather information, and everything was pointing to a big warming with a lot of rain on Sunday."
And, right on schedule, the weather delivered.
"It was the combination of multiple conditions turning on a dime that lead to the closure," Gwyn Howat, the executive vice president/operations manager at Baker told TGR. "It wasn’t just rain, it was also wind. We just experienced six inches of rain on top of 12 feet of snow and we've had winds of 55 miles per hour. Anybody who has lived in the mountains knows that's cause for concern."
As Howat references, that is a major cause for concern. The large amounts of rain can reduce the stability of the snowpack at Mount Baker. Coupled with the recent warm weather causing the snow at Baker to become heavier, experts predicted that not only were avalanches very possible, but these slides were likely to be powerful.
“With this amount of new snow and rain on top of it, we’re anticipating some potentially very large and dangerous avalanches,” Kenny Kramer, director of the Northwest Avalanche Center, told the Seattle Times on Sunday.
But, luckily, if you're in the Mount Baker area and looking to get some laps in, you won't have to wait long: Howat says by midday Monday the precipitation had turned back to snow and the resort would be reopening on Tuesday.
About The Author
stash member Robert Pursell
Connecticut journalism transplant who enjoys telling stories, drinking beer and skiing, though not necessarily in that order. I have the annoying habit of petting other people's dogs without asking.