An Amusing Anecdote from FTO News Article

>What we have in this situation is the last 5 years when Alta's January snowfall has been 55% of average

That would make sense -- I moved to Utah in 2007-08 so majority of my experience has been during the dry spell... and given that majority of *that* time has been in the Wasatch Back ("Back", I tell you!) it has even been a drier spell.

They say the markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid. So with a tip of the hat to the 40-year stats, I still will not invite any skiing guests this January.
 
Evren":3j7g3qy6 said:
So with a tip of the hat to the 40-year stats, I still will not invite any skiing guests this January.
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Then I would strongly recommend you not invite any skiing guests in December, especially to the Wasatch Back where even average snowfall might not yield decent coverage before January.

digaaron":3j7g3qy6 said:
Sierra magazine, this winter. It's a cool story, but I might be biased. ;-)
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Some points in the discussion here might be helpful in the preparation of that story.
1) See the Mammoth highest and lowest decades above. Despite the past 4 years being the most acute Sierra drought since at least the 1920's-1930's, note that the past decade is still higher than 1984-1993. If a decade doesn't represent a long term average accurately, 4 years is far too short a time period to be drawing conclusions about future trends.
2) See Chris Steiner article and my commentary below it. http://zrankings.com/articles/ski-resor ... -ever.html In terms of western North America as a whole 2014-15 was in the ballpark with 1980-81 and not as bad as 1976-77. This does not fit the narrative of ski area winters going to hell in a handbasket compared to the "good old days" 30-40 years ago.

Weather data is far more available in cities and even smaller towns than at ski area elevations. Many of these doom and gloom articles use snowfall anecdotes from elevations lower than the ski areas. Here's a graph of North America snowfall in ski areas since 1973:
SnowTrendGraph15.jpg

Notice also that 2010-11 was the clear-cut top snowfall season, with 2007-08 also being among the top 4.
 
Tony Crocker":dvnktii7 said:
MarcC":dvnktii7 said:
Our weather also usually occurs in 4-6 week cycles, with the greater bulk of winter storms starting in mid-November. Project that out and you get a often dry mid-January.
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This is absurd. Weather can just as easily occur in one or two week cycles. If 4-6 weeks had sufficient persistence to make mid-January abnormally dry that would show up in negative month-to-month correlations and even (horror of horrors!) in averages.
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As stated by Kevin Eubanks, KSL weather, repeatedly, over the past 15 years.
Argue with him.
 
digaaron":1d789org said:
Sierra magazine, this winter. It's a cool story, but I might be biased.
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I hope you're happy with yourself -- bringing this annoying food fight back from the dead. ](*,)
 
Tony Crocker":30q10amg said:
I have yet to see any comment from the Utah locals why:
Month 1: 11,10,9,9,8,8,8,6,5,5,5,4,4,4,4,4,3
Month 2: 11,9,8,8,7,7,6,6,6,5,5,4,4,4,4,4,4,3,3,3,3
Month 3: 12,11,10,9,9,8,7,6,5,5,5,4,4,4,3,3,3,3
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is not a valid analysis of the relative incidence of dry spells within the 31-day winter months, despite posting it 5 times.
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'Cause I still don't know what it means.
 
Tony Crocker":2w54es2u said:
What we have in this situation is the last 5 years when Alta's January snowfall has been 55% of average and thus by far the driest winter month. Even the last 15 years January has been 86% of long term average and lower than both December and March. You push that data back 40 years and the presumed effect disappears.
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And that is the precise time frame we've been talking about, not 40 years ago.
Thank you for finally validating our point after 2 or 3 years of argument. You even managed to do it with averages.
 
MarcC":asm8vxit said:
And that is the precise time frame we've been talking about, not 40 years ago.
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An interesting hypothesis. Saying the past 10 years are a more valid indicator for the future than the past 40 years means:
1) Attributing it to a permanent change in the climate (I'm sure admin agrees with this :lol: ), and
2) Saying that said climate change decreases snowfall in January, coldest month of the year, more than other months.
Many people believe in 1). It seems difficult to find a meteorological explanation for 2). Most climate change advocates point to the shoulder seasons as seeing the first impact of decreased snowfall.

The graph I posted above demonstrates minimal if any decrease in ski area snowfall (Alta has zero decrease) over the past 40 years. Arguing that there is a real decrease in January snowfall accompanied by increases in other months would be quite a stretch.

The above points inform my opinion that the past 10 January snowfalls are more likely to be random deviation. Alta Collins' maximum decade of 2002-2011 is the same as Mammoth's and averages 582 inches. Alta Collins' minimum decade is only one year offset from Mammoth's, 1985-1994 averaging 472 inches.

Many climate change advocates believe the past 15 years of global temperatures are random deviation from a long term upward trend. At any rate, I'm pleased that the discussion is finally based more upon the substantive causes of disagreement.

MarcC":asm8vxit said:
'Cause I still don't know what it means.
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Really? The idea was to come up with a stat analysis that addressed the question and was straightforward to understand. You're welcome to address the issue some other way. I'm done at this point.

The Alta daily data is still readily available for public use. I could send it to you in spreadsheet form, but I'm sure you're more capable than I of downloading it into usable format.
 
Tony, I understand the points you are making. My question is, is it your assertion that there is no correlation between snowfall year-to-year? I don't know one way or the other but the time I have been here, there have been multi-year periods of "wet" winters and "dry" winters. Obviously patterns change at some point. But don't the last 3-4 years increase the chances of an additional year of "dry"?
 
Evren":3fm9xz8l said:
Tony, I understand the points you are making. My question is, is it your assertion that there is no correlation between snowfall year-to-year? I don't know one way or the other but the time I have been here, there have been multi-year periods of "wet" winters and "dry" winters. Obviously patterns change at some point. But don't the last 3-4 years increase the chances of an additional year of "dry"?
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There is zero evidence of that. Many people have commented that in the Sierra the droughts of 1976-77 and 1987-92 were broken by huge years in 1978 and 1993.

Not only is there zero correlation year to year, there is zero correlation once you get as far as two months apart. December's weather has no predictive value for February and only slight positive correlation for January. There was a long stretch of time where February and March had negative correlation at many western ski areas. I've never heard anyone claim that meant anything other than random fluctuation either.

Sometimes La Ninas last more than one winter (much rarer for El Ninos) and in that scenario the PNW etc. tends to do well in both of them. The warm water "Blob" and "Ridiculously Resilient Ridge" persisted in winters of both 2014 and 2015. I think that's rather unusual. High pressure ridges often persist for say 1-3 weeks, but for the majority of a winter fortunately not so often.
 
Can any Utah locals give dates for the Utah high pressure?

Like does it coincide with the Sundance film festival?

Or is it more mid-month?
 
ChrisC":2pdetscx said:
Can any Utah locals give dates for the Utah high pressure?

Like does it coincide with the Sundance film festival?

Or is it more mid-month?
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The Sundance festival is Jan 21-31 2016.
We will have high pressure and dry on 1/8 - 1/18 and again 1/23 - 1/27.
Stop trolling!
 
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