Snow - a matter of measurements?

Posted: 26 January 2011 05:58 PM

Hello!

The Norweigan weatherforecast site “www.yr.no” has a computer generated forcast system that I like to check out from time to time. You could print any location in the world in their forecastsystem and get a 10 day prognosis. As long as you are able to read the forecast in original language its great.

I do that from time to time. One thing that strikes me is that the forecasts when it comes to snowfall - meassured in mm of pure wather - over 24 hours is almost the same for ski resorts in France, Sweden, Norway, Japan and Canada.

So how come that resorts that are known to have rather shallow snowpacks gets the same amount of snowfall (at least in the forecast) as resorts that are know to be the best powder places in the world? Is it just a matter of how you messure and report the snowdepth? Is it a matter of climate?  In north Sweden 1 mm of water is “worth” 10 mm of snow. Probably that´s worth less in a warmer climate and worth more in a colder climate with bigger cristals. Or is it?

I have looked at this from time to time and I really can´t see any big difference in terms of 1 mm of pure water between, say Chamonix and Mt Baker. A snowfall seems to generate about 0.9-3.5 mm of water in 24 hours no matter where its takning place. 

Could this be due to different types of snow or could it be due to that places like Mt Baker mabe get´s a few really heavy dumps that gives their famous snowdepth? Or is it just a matter of reporting? I mean: we al know where to find the good snow and if one measure the snowdept in places that catch snow it´s for sure a lot deeper than if one measure the deept spread out over the mountain and taking places that has great windexposure into the statistics.

Or is it just a slump whenever I happen to look? Anyway: whenever I look it´s just seems to be the same amout in France, US or Scandinavia on any given day that has a snowfall.

Posted: 27 January 2011 09:14 AM

Snow forecasting is a tricky business. We had about 12cm forecast for Zauchensee this week. In actual fact there was more like 60cm of fresh snow! I’ve just had some of the most epic powder days of my life and everybody looking at Snow-forecast.com was probably thinking 12cm… that’s hardly worth getting out of bed for. In my experiemce some geographical locations just have bigger snowfalls. Flachau had just over a foot and Zauchensee which is 5km down the valley had more than twice that and always gets considerably more. I find Bergfex.comto be the most accurate forcasting engine.

Posted: 27 January 2011 11:04 AM

I find this as well around here.

I use theweathernetwork.com and look for the snow days.  They are usually like 4 times less then what is actually happening in the mountains.

Posted: 27 January 2011 04:20 PM

60 cm of fresh!

I could use that.

The snowfall the last week´s has been rather poor. On the other hand that has forced me into rails and that kind of park stuff.  Fun to learn something new. The rainbow rail is my goal tonight. Yes it sure is =)

How deep would you estimate your riding snowpack to be? And how deep says the reports?

I would say that we have around 90-110 cm where we ride. But the report for the general snowpack says no more than 40-50 cm.