Go deep on snow depth data: New on the net device puts Pacific NW mountain totals in historic context

As the Seattle area braces for snow later this week, the mountains close to the Pacific Northwest have already noticed sizable accumulations this calendar year. Tracking that snow depth has been produced a little bit less difficult many thanks to a new online device developed by the College of Washington and the Northwest Avalanche Center.

The interactive mountain snow depth tool will allow end users to see how recent snow depth compares to earlier yrs at 9 locations in Washington and two in Oregon. The device, created with guidance from Seattle facts visualization business Tableau, is totally free to use on the Workplace of the Washington State Climatologist’s web-site.

According to UW information, the new effort replaces a instrument that was created a ten years in the past working with NWAC snow depth data, displayed in a straightforward graphic.

“When that display was not functioning, which is the a person exactly where we would get emails from ski lovers or other meteorologists or climatologists,” said Karin Bumbaco, a UW research scientist who is the assistant condition climatologist. “To us that was a fantastic sign that we should really rebuild it,” she told UW News.

The new model displays far more data and is a enjoyable way to go deep on snow depth facts from many years previous. For instance, Mt. Baker’s famously epic snow seasons are illustrated by more sharp spikes in the data — primarily when on the lookout back again at 1999. That 12 months, Baker reached a document depth of 311 inches of snow on April 1. Snowboarder magazine known as the “unfathomable” amount of snow “too a great deal of a good thing.”

In accordance to the instrument, a Feb. 1 measurement for Baker shows the mountain at 155 inches so much this calendar year — 32 inches previously mentioned its regular, calculated from 1927 until eventually now. Most of the 11 stations are now measuring a bit earlier mentioned-normal snow depth.

Paradise on Mount Rainier is the only other internet site with a measurement station dating back to 1927. Measurements go again to 1974 for the two most recent stations, at Mount Hood Meadows and Timberline in Oregon.

The Northwest Avalanche Middle collects knowledge in buy to check the chance of avalanches to roadways and people utilizing the mountains for wintertime things to do. Data are entered 12 situations a 12 months, on the 1st and the 15th of each individual thirty day period, in the course of the monitoring year from Nov. 15 to Might 1.

The new software enhances a previous UW knowledge visualization hard work wanting at lengthy-phrase weather conditions trends.