Looking back at Winter 2021-2022

Tomer’s Take:

• Winter started late in many areas with warm/dry weather through most of November and early December.
• December ended strong in the Sierra and across the Intermountain West with a few moderate to strong atmospheric river (AR) setups.
• These AR’s hit parts of Colorado hard including above normal snowfall (100″) in Crested Butte.
• Then the storm track changed and the flow dried up.
• April delivered one last surge of snow to many places that were in desperate need.
• April also brought a 100-150mph jet stream that followed La Nina architecture and sat over the Intermountain West for 3 weeks. Abnormally strong winds prevailed.

Forecast vs Reality

Here is the Winter forecast I published in August/September 2021.

Here are the preliminary season totals for comparison.

There were hits and misses. A few highlights:

• Hit: Below normal snowfall Sierra Mountains
• Hit: Below normal snowfall Colorado’s Southern Mountains
• Hit & Miss: Normal snowfall across parts (not all) of Colorado’s Central and Northern Mountains
• Hit: Above normal snowfall across parts of the PNW
• Miss: I predicted normal snowfall across the Wasatch
• Worst Miss: I predicted above normal snowfall in the Tetons
• Miss: I predicted normal snowfall across Colorado’s Front Range ski areas

A few specifics, snowfall in inches:

Location	Actual	Normal
Loveland	260	422
Alta	440	530
Wolf Creek	385	430
Steamboat	249	314
Crested Butte	234	234
Jackson Hole	334	526
Park City	194	355

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