Year to Date
I've been keeping an eye on the year to date snowfall at the Alta Guard for this season and it looks like we are well on our way to breaking a record for the all time lowest amount. Records date back to 1945 at the Alta Guard. Let's take a look at where we are.
Here are the monthly totals (in inches) as of Saturday, March 14 along with the monthly averages:
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr Total 2014-15 59.5 73.5 28.5 35 17 213.5 Average 70 92 94 83 90 68 499March outlook
So, I'm going to speculate a bit on how much more snow we see in March based on the current GFS weather model. For the next week, the ridge of high pressure basically continues to dominate. A messy storm may move through mid week perhaps giving us a little snow(?) then it's back to high pressure. That pushes us through the 3rd week in March. Then the weather model shows some storminess during the last week of March. So perhaps a few inches of snow mid week next week then perhaps a better chance for accumulations the last week of March.
My rough speculation is 24 more inches of snow might be recorded at the Alta Guard by the end of March. This would produce a March total of 41 inches, well below the average of 90 inches. IF we get 24 more inches, that would put our year to date total through March at 237.5 inches.
Thoughts on April
It's way too early for me to speculate on snowfall for April but we can use the averages and where we are now to look at what our totals for this season might look like.
For amusement, let's just say my guess for anticipated March snowfall is correct and we end up with year to date total of 237.5 inches by the end of March. The average snowfall for April is 68 inches. So, let's just say we have an average April and add 68 inches to our YTD total of 237.5 inches. That puts us at 305.5 inches for the 2014-15 season. The old record is 314.5 inches during the 1976-77 season.
Now, the record for the most snow recorded in April is 136 inches. If we have another huge April and add 136 to our YTD 237.5, that still only puts us at 373 inches total, well below our annual average.
Will we see an average snow amount in April? Hard to say but my money is on average or below.
Comments