Trees dusted with snow from the weekend stand behind the White Pass Ski Area's sign along U.S. Highway 12 on Nov. 2, 2015.
Storms that brought heavy rains to Southwest Washington didn’t bring much snow to the mountains surrounding White Pass, but they did bring extremely powerful wind.
White Pass Ski Area spokeswoman Kathleen Goyette said the mountain recorded gusts of up to 110 miles per hour Tuesday night.
The gauge eventually quit working at 6 a.m. Wednesday, giving a final reading of between 75 and 80 mph before it stopped.
“We’re going to have someone go up and fix it now,” she said. “We were lucky power held up.”
Johnny Burg, of the National Weather Service in Seattle, said high elevations across the southern Cascades saw big wind events. Three different gauges at and around Crystal Mountain recorded speeds of up to 108 mph.
“If it were just one gauge it’d be questionable, but with three others showing more than 100, (White Pass’ reading) looks reasonable,” he said.
Hurricane force winds begin at 72.9 mph.
“We looked at the data and were like, ‘Oh, wow,’” he said.
Burg said meteorologists at the Weather Service were so surprised by the readings they called the Northwest Avalanche Center to verify their gauge read the same thing.
Because the winds were recorded at elevations between 4,000-7,000 feet, Burg said it’s doubtful there was much damage to property.
Camp Muir at Mount Rainier National Park recorded peak winds at 84 mph. Gauges in Packwood recorded a top wind speed of 42 mph.
Goyette said White Pass was fortunate in that falling trees didn’t cause any significant damage and what cleanup had to happen was relatively minor. She also said the mountain did get some snow over night, but only a little. As fast as the wind was blowing, she said most of it just blew off. She said the ski area is ready to open at any time, it’s just a matter of getting the right amount of snow. The mountain has about 14 inches of snow at the peak and only a couple inches at the base. White Pass needs 18-24 inches as a base before it can open. She said the weather has been cold enough that the crews have been making snow already.
Over the last 10 years, White Pass has opened for skiing between Dec. 5 and Dec. 10. But, Goyette said, crews are trained they could open as soon as enough snow lands.
“We’re ready to open as soon as possible,” she said.
Apparently, skiers and snowboarders are as well because any time a storm hits the mountain’s website traffic jumps substantially.
“It literally drives tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people to our website because they look at conditions,” she said. “If our cameras fog or freeze up people start going nuts.”
