Why So Much Snow At Snoqualmie Pass?
By the time this week is over, as much as 8 feet of new snow may have fallen at Snoqualmie Pass. How can that one area get so much snow when it’s not raining nearly that much in the lowlands? It’s all about the upper-level winds, which are in the perfect alignment for a heavy, consistent snow in the Cascades. We have a very strong jet stream pointed right at Western Washington, and the general air flow in the wake of Monday night’s storm has been almost straight from the west. That air is also still very moist as it comes off the ocean. As that air slams into the western side of the Cascades, the air is lifted up the mountains’ slopes. When air lifts, it cools and condenses — in essence, it’s like squeezing a soaked sponge, only in this case, it’s snow that comes pouring out. (That’s the physics behind why there’s a big rain forest on the southwestern slopes of the Olympic Mountains as our flow is predominantly out of the southwest. That air hits the southwestern slopes and squeezes o
