tl;dr
I often have conversations on the chairlift or the skin track that involve how the Cascades don’t get as much as snow as they used to. It has been said that the 1950s/1960s were the golden age of skiing in the PNW and our ski seasons now are shorter, with less snow, more frequent rain, and that the future is bleak. Putting aside the chairlift hearsay I wanted to know what the data said about the accuracy of that sentiment. Specifically, I set out to answer the following questions:
- Are the Cascades getting less snow than they used to?
- Are our ski seasons becoming shorter?
- How has climate change affected our ski areas in Washington?
- And most importantly, what does the future hold?
Surprisingly, the answer to those first two questions is… eh, not really. We’re more or less getting the same amount of snow currently as in the 20th century; arguably more in some cases! Which begs the question, are we still in the golden age of PNW skiing? Quite possibly, but if so, for how much longer?
However, there are some BIG caveats to that statement. Unfortunately, the full answer to these questions is not a short one. As for the latter two questions, well, the future is not looking good without adaptions but it may not be as bad as you think. Here I explore what over 100 years of snowpack and snowfall data in the Cascades tells us, how broader regional cycles affect our weather, what actual peer reviewed studies have concluded, and what this means for skiing in the Cascades in the near and foreseeable future.