Jackson Hole hits 505 inches!

[Donziweasel]

After some nice weather at the beginning of March, old man winter has returned. Got 21 inches the other day, then 7, then 9 last night. The big one continues! The mountain closes April 6 and the race is on for 600 inches, a true record. There are areas around here zeroing in on 600 already.

[boxy]

In the town of Jackson, and the surrounding areas do you get the occasional thaw/melt, or is the 500 inches of snow piled up where you actually live?

[Donziweasel]

The report is from 10,450 ft on the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. So it is really just the mountains. The valley only gets 100-150 inches a year. We are well north of 200 on the valley right now.

My yard has about 2-3 ft of snow right now. When we had all the nice weather last week and the week before, we definetly got some melting on the valley. The problem is that all the drains in town are still frozen, so you get huge puddles all over town. There are some snow banks over 15 ft in town where they have been depositing snow with bucket loaders. The thing with snow is although I don't think we have had that much melting, if snow just sits and gets warm, it gets heavy and compacts. As for the 505 inches in the mountains, it is still all there and will be until the spring runoff in May and June.

[yeller]

Seems like a real snow year in a lot of places. We've had huge dumps this year as well. Now everyones praying for a slow thaw. If spring comes on fast and warm, there'll be lots of flooding.

[Donziweasel]

Flooding is going to be a serious concern for us, as it was in 1997 when we got over 500 inches. That was the year the Dakotas flooded and many towns burned as a result of the water and no power. We got it too, just not as bad. We did almost lose Palisades reservoir damn though, which would have killed 1000's. It was wide open at over 48,000 cubic feet per second and still couldn't release enough. Three days before a projected overflow, it finally equalized the amount of water coming in vs. letting out. Whew!

[fegettes]

Will this snow melt eventually find its way down to the lakes, as in Meade and Powell, where they need it?

[Donziweasel]

For the most part, yes. The headwaters of the Green are only an hour from here in the Wind River Range. They are at 150% of annual snowfall. The Green is a major tributary of the Colorado and will make it to Powell. The Snake in JH flows west into the Columbia and into the Pacific, so none of the water will make it to Powell or Mead.

The forecast for the Western Lakes is excellent. There have even been reports that Powell will fill or come close. All of the western us, including the important sounthern Colorado, has had a great above average snow year for the first time in years, maybe 10 years. While Jackson has had decent snow years during that period, Colorado has not. It seems that we are finally getting over the 10 year drought hump. How our runnoff season works is a big factor in Lake levels. If we have a cool snowy spring, runnoff will be delayed and lake levels might not rise until July. If it gets hot fast, the runoff will begin much earlier and the lakes could benefit as early as mid-May, but may go back down by mid summer due to runoff being over. Summer precip also can contribute. Wet summer, more water, but we really haven't had a wet summer since the mid-1990's.

[WingWing]

I was just by there last week in bondurant. flew in and out of jackson. Beautiful country. Guess I got in and out before it got bad, it only snowed a little bit while I was there.