Steamboat Lake Area Snow?
- Thread starter yooper 8
- Start date
I rode seed house Dec 30 and they need ALOT more snow up there for me to head up there again.
There is a demarcation line that splits south and north steamboat for snow levels
I am copying an article from the local Steamboat paper and from talking with riders in the Kremmling and Rabbit Ears area I am getting consistent reports that levels are low east of Rabbit Ears and also further to the north. Rabbit Ears is ok, but the area north of there like Steamboat Lake, Walden and Clark and the Snowies, aren't getting as much as areas along Colorado HWY 40 and south all the way into southern Colorado.
Here's the article:
Steamboat Springs — The strong El Niño weather pattern, which has been feared for its contrary nature and potential to hold down winter snowfall in Northern Colorado, has turned out to be a help rather than a hindrance through the first week in January.
In its first Colorado Water Supply Outlook Report of the water year that began Oct. 1, 2015, the Denver office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service said statewide snowpack is 118 percent of normal. Colorado Snow Survey Supervisor Brian Domonkos characterized it as the best start to winter this decade and ranked it as the ninth best start since 1982.
“With a sizable chunk of the winter already behind us, this is a good starting point, however more than half of the winter remains,” he said in a written statement, adding that, in a typical year, Colorado has received about two fifths of the seasonal snowpack by the first week in January.
However, Domonkos said during a telephone interview Wednesday that snowfall patterns such as the one that delivered consistent, but modest snow accumulations of one to four inches at a time here during the week after Christmas, can be a significant contributor to overall snowpack.
The Tower site, above 10,000 feet on the Continental Divide north of Steamboat, is one of 13 snow measuring sites that were below 100 percent snowpack. Domonkos also mentioned the Elk and Little Snake watersheds in North Routt as being among the river basins that are below normal but still near the median.
There is an apparent disconnect between snowpack levels measured on the western summit of Rabbit Ears Pass — at 9,400 feet elevation where snowpack is 110 percent of median — and at the Tower site, where it’s just 69 percent of median, having slipped from 76 percent Jan. 1.
There’s more stored water on Buffalo Pass this week, with 14.8 inches, compared to 11.7 inches on Rabbit Ears. But Tower would typically have a little more than 21 inches stored in the snow on this date and hold one of the biggest snowpacks in the state.
“It looks like a very specific dividing line at this point in time,” Domonkos said. “I wouldn’t call it a disparity, but it’s definitely a difference where you’ve got more bountiful snowpack to the south and it’s drier to the north.”
The February snow course could give Domonkos’ agency a clearer picture of snowpack in this area.
“In your neck of the woods, it seems there are some differences among sub-basins, or smaller watersheds,” he said.
End of article.
So to summarize the article, some areas are still great for snowmobiling but instead of the entire area being good, it varies a lot between good to bad conditions and area to area right along the HWY 40 line.
The snowfall and snowpack is phenomenal in our neck of the woods about 1 hour South of Steamboat. If anyone is interested please look us up.
I am copying an article from the local Steamboat paper and from talking with riders in the Kremmling and Rabbit Ears area I am getting consistent reports that levels are low east of Rabbit Ears and also further to the north. Rabbit Ears is ok, but the area north of there like Steamboat Lake, Walden and Clark and the Snowies, aren't getting as much as areas along Colorado HWY 40 and south all the way into southern Colorado.
Here's the article:
Steamboat Springs — The strong El Niño weather pattern, which has been feared for its contrary nature and potential to hold down winter snowfall in Northern Colorado, has turned out to be a help rather than a hindrance through the first week in January.
In its first Colorado Water Supply Outlook Report of the water year that began Oct. 1, 2015, the Denver office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service said statewide snowpack is 118 percent of normal. Colorado Snow Survey Supervisor Brian Domonkos characterized it as the best start to winter this decade and ranked it as the ninth best start since 1982.
“With a sizable chunk of the winter already behind us, this is a good starting point, however more than half of the winter remains,” he said in a written statement, adding that, in a typical year, Colorado has received about two fifths of the seasonal snowpack by the first week in January.
However, Domonkos said during a telephone interview Wednesday that snowfall patterns such as the one that delivered consistent, but modest snow accumulations of one to four inches at a time here during the week after Christmas, can be a significant contributor to overall snowpack.
The Tower site, above 10,000 feet on the Continental Divide north of Steamboat, is one of 13 snow measuring sites that were below 100 percent snowpack. Domonkos also mentioned the Elk and Little Snake watersheds in North Routt as being among the river basins that are below normal but still near the median.
There is an apparent disconnect between snowpack levels measured on the western summit of Rabbit Ears Pass — at 9,400 feet elevation where snowpack is 110 percent of median — and at the Tower site, where it’s just 69 percent of median, having slipped from 76 percent Jan. 1.
There’s more stored water on Buffalo Pass this week, with 14.8 inches, compared to 11.7 inches on Rabbit Ears. But Tower would typically have a little more than 21 inches stored in the snow on this date and hold one of the biggest snowpacks in the state.
“It looks like a very specific dividing line at this point in time,” Domonkos said. “I wouldn’t call it a disparity, but it’s definitely a difference where you’ve got more bountiful snowpack to the south and it’s drier to the north.”
The February snow course could give Domonkos’ agency a clearer picture of snowpack in this area.
“In your neck of the woods, it seems there are some differences among sub-basins, or smaller watersheds,” he said.
End of article.
So to summarize the article, some areas are still great for snowmobiling but instead of the entire area being good, it varies a lot between good to bad conditions and area to area right along the HWY 40 line.
The snowfall and snowpack is phenomenal in our neck of the woods about 1 hour South of Steamboat. If anyone is interested please look us up.
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