The winter season is technically defined as: December, January and February. This is what is known as the “meteorological winter”. According to the “calendar season”, winter doesn’t officially end until the Spring Equinox, which will be this coming Monday, March 20th.

In Jackson Hole, winter isn’t over until the “ski season” ends in April. And I might add, for some Jackson Hole locals, the ski season doesn’t end until all the snow melts.

Since the meteorological winter is now behind us, and spring (March, April, May) has technically begun, I thought I would summarize this “winter’s” weather in this week’s column. In a subsequent column I will add March to the mix and give you the grand totals, for the entire “ski season”.

First, I will summarize and compare snowfall and water in the mountains. Then I will summarize snow, water, and temperatures for this winter in the Town of Jackson.

Mountain Snow

At the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, at the 9,580-ft. elevation in Rendezvous Bowl, the total snowfall received at that location from December 1st, 2016 through February 28th, 2017 was 390 inches. That is over 32 feet of snowfall over those three months alone.

The Rendezvous Bowl weather site has the longest continuous record of snowfall on the upper mountain, and the record snowfall at that site for December through February is 417 inches, or almost 35-feet of snowfall. That was during the winter of 1996-97. The winter of 2016-17 is now the second snowiest “winter season” on the mountain, in their 40-some years of weather records. All other winters are a distant third.

At the end of the meteorological winter this year, the settled snow depth in Rendezvous Bowl was at 151 inches. Making this the deepest winter ever.

Note: In early March, Rendezvous Bowl’s snow depth reached 158 inches. That beat the old deepest snow depth record of 157 inches that occurred in late March of 1997.

Water content of the snowpack at the end of February 2017, measured at the Phillips Bench Snotel site at the 8,200 foot elevation near Teton Pass, was at 157-percent of the median. The snowpack there contained 31 inches of water, compared to an average for the end of February of 21.8 inches, or almost 10 inches more than normal.

By the way, at the end of February 1997 Phillips Bench had 37 inches of Snow Water Equivalent. Six inches more than February 2017.

Town of Jackson

Snow and water numbers in the mountains might be mind-blowing, but what happened in town this winter was nothing short of being one of the wildest weather winters on record. Snow, rain, cold, warm…..we had it all. And we had it over, and over, and over again.

Snowfall-wise: This winter stacks up with some of the snowiest. Rain events in February are the only thing that kept us from blowing away the all-time record snowfall winter. This winter, 90 inches of snowfall was measured at the Jackson Climate Station. That is 40 inches more than the long-term average for December through February. Average is 50 inches.

That ranks the Winter 2016-17 as the third snowiest winter season on record in town. February of 2008-09 holds second place with 98.5 inches, and the winter of 1968-69 still has the all-time record of 114 inches of snowfall.

Water-wise: During the three months of the winter season 2016-17 Jackson had an astonishing 11.85 inches of precipitation, almost a foot of precipitation. That completely washed away the previous record from the wettest winter ever in Jackson. The old record was 9.28 inches of water from the winter of 1964-65.

February 2017 accounted for almost half of this winter’s total precipitation, with 5.75 inches. That is five times the average for February of 1.14 inches and more than double the previous record precipitation of 2.83 inches for February, set back in 1962.

Temperature-wise: It may not seem like it recently, but Winter 2016-17 was colder than normal, overall. December was quite cold, with a mean temperature (average of high and low temperatures) that was 6-degrees colder than normal. January was even colder; with a mean temperature that was 11 degrees colder than the long-term average. February made up for some of this temperature deficit, coming in almost 7-degrees above normal.

Comparing temperatures from that other wet winter of 1964-65 to this winter, the biggest difference was that 1964-65 was warm all three month. It rained in December 1964 with high temperatures in the lower 40’s. It rained in January 1965, with highs also in the lower 40’s. It rained in February 1965, and high temperatures reached 50-degrees, on February 4th, 1965.

This winter, we never hit 40-degrees in December or January, and the winter’s highest temperature was 44-degrees on February 16th, 2017

Bottom-line: For the meteorological winter, the mountain snowpack was the deepest ever; snowfall and water amounts were second only to the winter of 1996-97. The Town of Jackson had more snow during the winters of 2008-09 and 1968-69, but broke the record for total precipitation this winter season.

Jim is the chief meteorologist at mountainweather.com and has been forecasting weather in Jackson Hole and the Teton Range for more than 25 years.

(This article first appeared in the Mountain Weather column in the Jackson Hole News & Guide on Feb. 1st, 2017).

Winter is half over, but already huge!

The first half of the winter season draws to a close on Thursday, February 2nd, Groundhog’s Day. That is the halfway point between December’s Solstice and March’s Equinox. And what a snowy first half it has been.

Recent conversations I have had around town usually come around to mentioning how much snow we’ve had, and how it seems snowier than we have seen in a long time.

It has been a while since we have seen this much snow, but perhaps not as long as you might think. Which begs the question, “how snowy is it?” In this week’s column I will look at how much snow we have received, in town and in the mountains, during the first half of the winter season.

Town Snow

At this point, we have already received enough snow in the Town of Jackson, in December and January alone, to exceed the long-term average total snowfall for the four winter months, December through March. Even if town did not receive any more new snow for the next two months, we’d still end up with an above normal snowfall winter.

In December 2016 we had 34 inches of snow recorded at the Jackson Climate Station. Add to that the 30 inches we had January 2017, and that makes a total of 64 inches in the last two months. The long-term average snowfall in town from December 1st through March 31st is 61 inches.

That is a lot of snow, however, that is nowhere near our record snowfall. The snowiest December ever was in 2008, with 47.5 inches. The snowiest January ever was in 1969, with 56 inches in town.

If you combined the snowfalls for December and January, for those years, here is what you would find: Total snowfall for December 1968 and January 1969 was 82 inches in town. Total snowfall for December 2008 and January 2009 was 87.5 inches.

So, it was only eight winters ago that we had the biggest one-two punch of snow we have ever seen in the Town of Jackson, for a December-January combined snowfall. Almost two feet more snow fell in December 2008 and January 2009 than we had this December-January.

Mountain Snow

I think it is safe to say that the mountains had a very “powderful” December and January. The total snowfall for December and January (through January 28th) was 241 inches at the Rendezvous Bowl weather station (Elevation 9,580 feet) at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

In December of 2016, 153 inches of snow was recorded, nearly doubling the average for December of 81 inches. This was also the second snowiest December in their history, behind the 225 inches that fell during December 1996.

In January of 2017, as of this past weekend, Rendezvous Bowl had recorded 88 inches of snow for the month. That is just ahead of the long-term average January snowfall of 85 inches for that site, but well behind the record January on the mountain of 150 inches set in 1998.

Looking at the combination of big Decembers and Januarys in the same winter: December of 1996 (225 inches) and January of 1997 (126 inches) is still the clear winner for giant snowfall numbers, with a total of 351 inches for the two-month period. Twenty years later, it looks like December 2016 and January 2017 have combined to be the second snowiest, with that 241-inch total.

By the way, that two-month snow total for December 1996 and January 1997 of 351 inches was greater than the long-term average snowfall of 299 inches for December 1st through March 31st at Rendezvous Bowl.

Deep and Cold

Temperatures have been colder than normal these past few months, during almost break we had between snowstorms the last two months, it got down below zero. Colder temperatures keep the snow from settling as much, and every subsequent storm just piles it up deeper.

For valley dwellers, that means snow banks are really high. For skiers, borders and ‘bilers, that means deep coverage up high, with very few rocks showing anymore. This is a snowpack that will likely take a long time to completely melt away this spring.

Jim is the chief meteorologist at mountainweather.com and has been forecasting the weather in Jackson Hole and the Teton Range for the past 25 years.