Unofficial just got off the phone with UC Berkeley’s Donner Summit Snow Laboratory scientist Randall Osterhuber. He gave us the latest snowfall, precipitation, and snow depth numbers as well as some insight into the bizarre season we had this year.
“It was a strange winter in a lot of ways.” – Randall Osterhuber
“To come out of this year at 88% [precipitation] is great considering what we had this year.” – Randall Osterhuber
“March really carried it all.” – Randall Osterhuber
“The most surprising event was that we had 0 snow depth here on January 19th and that had never happened in the history of the snow lab. That period was historically dry here. We got our first permanent snow on January 20th.” – Randall Osterhuber“Last year [2010/11] we had permanent snow starting November 17th.” – Randall Osterhuber
THIS YEAR’S SNOW NUMBERS TO DATE:
– Precipitation = 1067mm (42 inches) = 88% of average to date
– Snowfall = 818cm (322 inches) = 81% of average to date
– Snow Depth = 15cm (6 inches) = 17% of average to date (this will melt out today…)
AVERAGE SNOW NUMBERS TO DATE:
– Snowfall = 1228cm (48.4 inches)
– Precipitation = 1020mm (401.5 inches)
– Snow Depth = 88cm (34.6 inches)
LAST YEAR’S SNOW NUMBERS TO DATE:
– Snowfall = 1511cm (595 inches)
– Precipitation = 1902mm (75 inches)
– Snow Depth = 290cm (114 inches)
