ALPINE’S WEATHERMAN: Not a spring like this in 35 years
It’s 4:30 a.m. and it’s snowing again in Tahoe.
While everyone else in the basin is fast asleep Alpine Meadows head avalanche forecaster, Gary Murph, and ski patrol director, Jeff Goldstone, are on the phone discussing how to handle the storm.
Not only have March and April storms brought Alpine’s mid-mountain snowpack to more than 260 inches, they’ve also kept patrol busy with nearly 30 days of avalanche control. For Murphy, who started rented skis at Alpine in 1971 and graduated to patroller and weatherman the very next year, this spring has brought plenty to talk about.
“The average density of the snow that fell in March was 7 percent,” says Murphy as he starts to pull poster size weather charts from behind his desk. “That’s unheard of in the Sierras.”
Everyday Murphy charts the weather at Alpine Meadows. He charts the temperature, snowdepth, wind speed and a dozen other things that help form the daily avalanche forecast. He has records going back to 1972 and the 197.5 inches of snow that fell on Alpine Meadows last month beat anything on file.
“It was the biggest month I’ve ever seen,” he says.
And April isn’t doing to bad either.
“By the time people read this we’ll have more than 60 inches in the first two weeks,” says Goldstone.
Every time it snows Goldstone gets a depth report from the mountain’s head groomer. By the time he dials Murphy’s number Gary is usually online checking data that tells him exactly how much snow has fallen at the two weather stations positioned at the mountains base and just below the Three Sisters.
If a storm brings in more than four inches and looks like it will stick around for a while they activate the avalanche control team.
So far this year the Alpine patrol has done 47 days of avalanche control on the mountain and 13 days on the slopes above the access road.
Considering they only threw charges 33 days last year and average 23 days a year, 2006 has been anything but normal. “We’ve had 700 Class II slides 14 Class III slides in March alone,” says Murphy, who also charts exactly how many hand charges have been detonated on each of the mountain’s 18 avalanche control routes.
Bob Moore, a winter sports specialist for the Truckee Ranger District who has been involved in avalanche forecasting and research in the Sierra since the late 1960s, said Murphy’s data and commitment to collection is vital for avalanche forecasters throughout the entire region. “What he has done with original system (which was created by avalanche gurus like Norm Wilson, Burney Kingre and Knox Williams) is incredible,” he says. “He picked up something that was struggling and turned it into a top notch program that is used by forecasters around the region.”