It’s no secret that the West gets the most snow. Cold fronts come down from the Gulf of Alaska, hit our North-South-oriented mountain ranges, and orographic lifting does the rest. There are ten ski resorts in the west that average over 500” of snow. Sometimes, we don’t realize how lucky we are. These snowfall average compete with anywhere in the world… except Japan.
The list below displays the largest annual snowfall averages in the USA per ski resort.
Largest Snowfall Averages in the USA:
#1 – Mt. Baker, WA = 655” (1,140” in 1999)
#2 – Alyeska, AK = 650” (978” in 2012)
#3 – Alta, UT = 563″
#4 – Timberline Lodge, OR = 551”
#5 – Sugar Bowl, CA = 500″
#5 – Kirkwood, CA = 500″
#5 – Snowbird, UT = 500” (record of 743” in 2011)
#5 – Solitude, UT = 500”
#5 – Brighton, UT = 500”
#5 – Grand Targhee, WY = 500”
#6 – Crystal Mountain, WA = 486″
#7 – Mt. Bachelor, OR = 463″
#7 – Jackson Hole, WY = 459″
#8 – Squaw Valley, CA = 450” (record of 811” in 2011)
#8 – Alpine Meadows, CA = 450”
#8 – Stevens Pass, WA = 450″
Note: All of these snowfall averages were taken from the websites of the ski areas themselves. There are actually 16 ski resorts listed.
Mammoth gets significantly less snowfall than the Tahoe area resorts but it’s higher and colder so the snow it does get tends to stick around much longer and it fills in sooner.
Why wasn’t Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort on this list? From what I understand it, Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort gets more average seasonal snowfall than Squaw Valley Ski Resort.
I think Solitude and Brighton just use 500″ as marketing. They always seem to get about 20% less than Alta or Snowbird. Thats not hard science, just anecdotal obviously.
Your numbers are bogus, all resorts listed except Timberline Lodge, and Bachelor, take the snowfall totals on their upper elevation or summit site weather station. Timberline ,Bachelor take their readings from their base area. Mt. Hood Meadows snow plot is actually 200 vertical feet below their parking lot. If you took numbers from Timberline Lodge’s Palmer lift, they would be in a class by themselves. Timberline uses a sonar mounted on a grooming snowcat during summer grooming operations, they get snow base reading in excess of 60 feet. This is not a typo, yes excess of 60 feet!
John, Kirkwood’s numbers are base elevations totals. Ski past it everyday out.