Massive storm system brings Vail snowpack back to average

Sometimes one large storm can make all the difference in area snowpack.

The snowpack on Vail Mountain, which was just 81 percent of the average heading into Presidents’ Day weekend, is now back up to 97 percent of its 20-year average.

Vail Mountain was credited with receiving the most snow in the state over the weekend, recording 39 inches from Friday to Monday. And snow kept coming throughout the day on Monday, bringing Vail Mountain’s snow-water equivalent above 13 inches for the first time all season.

Snow-water equivalent is how snowpack is measured in the West, where a good snowpack heading into spring can mean the difference between feast or famine for ranches that depend on the water the snowpack creates.

Vail Pass to close on Tuesday

While it might seem like Vail now has more snow than manageable, the recent dump was just making up for lost time as Vail did not receive much snow in December and January following a big November in which nearly 90 inches of snow was recorded.

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The average snow-water equivalent for Feb. 16, over the last 20 years, is 13.5 inches. Go back to 1978, when the U.S. Geological Survey started measuring snowpack on Vail Mountain, and the average is 13.8 inches. Vail was recording 13.1 inches as of Monday.

The blizzard that came in on Friday was unrelenting throughout the weekend, causing massive travel delays as the Interstate 70 corridor through Vail and other areas was rarely open for more than a few hours at a time. Eagle County schools canceled classes on Friday, but were back in session again for the snowy Monday.

On Vail Pass, often the worst part of the mountain corridor, numerous instances of spun-out cars, jackknifed trailers and other accidents kept crews busy while the Colorado Department of Transportation issued frequent safety closures for the area.

A planned closure of Vail Pass is scheduled to start at 9 a.m. on Tuesday for avalanche mitigation work.

Avalanche forecasters caught in slide on Vail Pass

Several avalanches were reported in the region; on Friday two Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecasters were using snowmobiles to conduct fieldwork on Ptarmigan Ridge near Vail Pass when they unintentionally triggered a hard slab avalanche. They were unharmed.

“The pair walked downhill over areas of bare ground and hard windboard to see if they could access a recent avalanche that was triggered on February 2,” according to the report filed Friday. “They moved west across a bare slope onto a low-angle area of very hard, wind-drifted snow. They could see the old avalanche and discussed how to get there to do a crown profile. They decided the fastest way was to walk back uphill to their snowmobiles on the ridge, snowmobile down the ridge, and try to access it from above.”

As they were ascending, they felt the slope collapse, according to the report.

“The forecaster in the front moved uphill to safety,” according to the report. “The other forecaster, who was about 6 feet behind, scrambled a few feet to his left to the safety of the bed surface. The pair watched as the avalanche ripped out a big portion of Avalanche Bowl to their right.”

There’s a chance the snow showers might let up on Tuesday night and Wednesday during the day, according to the National Weather Service’s Grand Junction office. The chance of snow for Wednesday is just 10%, according to forecasters there.

But more snow is likely again for Thursday, with the National Weather Service reporting an 80% chance of snow showers starting Thursday morning.