A wicked winter storm blasted Jackson for four days, dumping three feet of snow and snarling holiday travel, but launching the ski season to a historic start.
Some areas saw 37 inches of snow drop Saturday through Tuesday. Flights were cancelled at Jackson Hole Airport, and winds up to 68 mph created a blizzard, made driving difficult and raised the avalanche danger.
Avalanche forecasters predicted the danger today to be considerable, meaning natural avalanches are possible. Meteorologists say the storm will slowly subside, but sub-zero temperatures will follow.
On Mount Glory, an avalanche Tuesday afternoon just missed a snowboarder and blocked Highway 22 between Wilson and Victor, Idaho.
Chris Towles was finishing a run down the northeast ridge of Mount Glory when the avalanche ran over a track he had laid down 15 seconds earlier.
“I saw this huge, 20-foot-tall snow cloud coming down the slide path,” he said. “The debris piled up feet from me” and covered the width of the road with up to four feet of snow.
“If I had been about 15 seconds slower, I might have been buried on Teton Pass,” he said. “It was a pretty impressive thing, seeing that air blast coming down that slide path. Scary as hell, too.”
Towles said he and others who saw the slide break loose were fairly certain the avalanche was natural and involved no skiers or snowboarders. Department of Transportation workers were on the scene quickly and moved people out of the danger zone, he said.
“We did a beacon search and a probe search” to ensure nobody was buried, he said.
Several skiers had to abandon their vehicles at the top of the pass and ski down to Wilson, he said.
The snow and wind also posed problems for Thanksgiving travelers at Jackson Hole Airport. The blizzard shut down the airport runway Tuesday. Two morning flights and four noon flights were cancelled.
“Today was a lot worse than yesterday,” airport director Ray Bishop said. “We haven’t turned a wheel all day.
“We’re out working on the runway and making some progress, but we’ve got a long ways to go,” he said. “We’re essentially, for technical purposes, closed.”
Besides wind and snow, runway friction is a factor. The airport is required to close the airstrip when the surface is too slippery. Even if the runway passes friction tests, pilots may still choose not to fly, he said.
Stranded passengers have been understanding, Bishop said. “They didn’t have to go very far to look at the window to see what the weather is.”
On the highways, the Wyoming Department of Transportation recommended no unnecessary travel. “The problem is the wind is going to stick around,” Tory Thomas, district maintenance engineer, said.
And while the weather is supposed to clear on Thursday, cold temperatures could create black ice, Thomas said.
Thomas reminded those braving the roads to slow down, have winter tires, and carry extra food, water and blankets in the car. Holiday travelers should let people know their route and their expected arrival time so, if overdue, people will know where to search.
The National Weather Service’s winter storm warning for Jackson expired at 11 p.m. Tuesday, but a cold front bringing frigid temperatures will keep winter’s icy grip on the valley.
Andy McNeel, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Riverton, said a wet, winter storm coming from the west combined with a strong Arctic cold front sweeping down from Canada.
High temperatures today will hover in the single digits. Overnight lows may fall to 15 below zero.
“With the winds, we’re going to see some wind chill values well below zero,” he said.
The snow, meanwhile, was a glorious sight for ski area managers. Jackson Hole Mountain Resort announced Tuesday it will open its entire mountain on Saturday — the first time it has ever been able to do so in November. Rendezvous Bowl has already received 113 inches of snowfall this season, a record for this date.
Grand Targhee Resort opened its Dreamcatcher and Shoshone chairlifts Saturday, six days earlier than scheduled. Targhee will open its Sacajawea lift Friday, offering all its terrain for skiers and snowboarders.
Avalanche forecasters predict that those who venture into steep, avalanche-prone terrain today “are likely to trigger soft surface slabs up to three feet deep.” Deeper hard slabs of up to five feet could also be cut loose, especially by heavier triggers such as snowmobiles or groups, Tuesday evening’s report said.
Today’s avalanche conditions will be refined this morning at jhavalanche.org.
The storm did not sweep through without delivering some humor. Internet chatter spread a story about a woman giving birth in an ambulance atop Teton Pass.
Mike Moyer, Jackson Hole Fire/EMS battalion chief, dismissed the story. While federal law prevents him from providing more information, he said no children were born on the highway Tuesday.
