[pct-l] Sierra Snow

[elisenme2 at gmail.com (Carl & Judy Rush)]

It all sounds good to me, I feel very optomistic now even though I had knee
surgery 4 days ago.

On 12/2/05, Steve Peterson <steve_peterson@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> In light of the recent NOAA discussion, I feel compelled to reveal that in
> mid-November I noticed that, in stark contrast to last year, there had
> been no
> significant snowfall in the Sierra.
>
> Stop laughing--there's more: I wondered if this might tell us anything
> about the
> rest of the year. You might be inclined (as I was) to think, "Naw, way too
> early
> to tell--too much can happen in the next six months."
>
> But we'd be wrong. Don't ask how I discovered this, but there is a strong
> correlation between snow water content at Tuolumne Meadows (TUM) on Dec 1
> and
> the day the Upper Tyndal Creek snow sensor (UTY) (near Forester Pass)
> reads zero.
>
> The average "zero day" at UTY is 12 June. The average snow water content
> on 1
> Dec at TUM is 3.76". An astonishing 80% of the time (over the past 26
> years), if
> the water content at TUM is less than 3.76", the zero day at UTY is
> *before* 12
> June, and if the water content at TUM is more than 3.76", the zero day at
> UTY is
> *after* 12 June!
>
> It's also somewhat proportional--that is, if the water content is a little
> less
> than 3.76" then the zero day is (generally) a little earlier than 12 June,
> and
> if the water content is a lot less than 3.76", then the zero day is a lot
> earlier than 12 June, but this correlation isn't as strong as the simple
> earlier/later correlation.
>
> The years the correlation didn't hold, three years the zero day was later
> than
> 12 June even though the water content at TUM was less than 3.76", and
> twice the
> zero day was earlier than 12 June even though the water content at TUM was
> greater than 3.76".
>
> Now that Dec 1 has come and gone, I can report that the TUM water content
> as of
> 1 Dec this year is 1.54" which would indicate that there is a very good
> chance
> (80%) that the UTY zero day will be earlier than average. Judging by past
> data,
> an amount of 1.54" would likely get us a zero day somewhere in the last
> few days
> of May through the first few days of June.
>
> For comparison purposes, in 2004, the UTY zero day was 1 June; in 2003, it
> was 5
> June. Thus, you could expect that this year's hiking experience will be
> similar
> to those of 2003 and 2004.
>
> But of course, there were those three exceptional years :-)
>
> --Steve (Don't need no stinkin' NOAA)
>
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