Snowiest place on earth

[Bob Chill]

Certainly not the snowiest but one of the more consistent areas is the Wasatch of Utah. It's orograhically perfect for just about every type of flow and even gets a kicker from the lake w/ NW flow. Areas in the Pac NW and BC/AK can be quite variable YoY.

Alta's lowest year out of the last 7 was 400" but has been bitting 600-700+ pretty regularly. Probably the best powder skiers paradise in the world.

I agree that the true snowiest place on earth is barely observed or not observed at all. There are alot of remote snowmagnets around the globe.

[BlizzardWx]

Certainly not the snowiest but one of the more consistent areas is the Wasatch of Utah. It's orograhically perfect for just about every type of flow and even gets a kicker from the lake w/ NW flow. Areas in the Pac NW and BC/AK can be quite variable YoY.

Alta's lowest year out of the last 7 was 400" but has been bitting 600-700+ pretty regularly. Probably the best powder skiers paradise in the world.

I agree that the true snowiest place on earth is barely observed or not observed at all. There are alot of remote snowmagnets around the globe.

Down here in the wasatch valleys we average about 60 inches a year so not that incredibly high but you are correct about the mountains being very snowy. Up at Alta they see several hundred per year and I think they recorded the most snow in the world in like 82 or 83 with ~1080 inches that year.

[Zemu Glacier]

Down here in the wasatch valleys we average about 60 inches a year so not that incredibly high but you are correct about the mountains being very snowy. Up at Alta they see several hundred per year and I think they recorded the most snow in the world in like 82 or 83 with ~1080 inches that year.

actually according to the following site the most snowfall recorded in Utah was 810 inches in 1984

http://www.currentre...owiest-year.php

While Alta gets a lot of snow there is no way its going to approach anything in the 1000 inch range

which is a very high mark that only the snowiest areas in the Washington Cascades have reached.

Specifically Mount Baker Ski resort which got 1,140 inches for the 1998-1999 season

The world record for the most snow in one year is now held by Mount Baker

(elevation: 10,775 feet / 3,285 meters) in Washington State, USA. The Mount

Baker Ski Area reported 1,140 inches (95 feet) / 2,896 cm (29 meters) of snowfall

for the 1998-99 season.

http://www.athropoli.../fact-baker.htm

The Paradise area right at the foot of the south face of Mount Rainer had the record before it was

broken with 1,122 inches for the 1971-1972 but probably has a higher Average than Mount Baker

Ski Resort.

here is their record of annual snowfall going back all the way to 1920.

http://www.nps.gov/m...e&pageid=457177

[Bob Chill]

actually according to the following site the most snowfall recorded in Utah was 810 inches in 1984

That's correct. There is no doubt that the Pac NW is the snowiest place in the US. The Wasatch is just impressive because it has consistently high YoY totals and is 700 miles from the nearest ocean.

Another thing is that the Pac NW dominates # of inches of liquid precip by far. Even if the Wasatch got 1100" of snow, the liquid equivalent would be a good bit below that of the Pac NW.

[Zemu Glacier]

That's correct. There is no doubt that the Pac NW is the snowiest place in the US. The Wasatch is just impressive because it has consistently high YoY totals and is 700 miles from the nearest ocean.

well I would qualify that by saying that there is no doubt that the pacific NW is the snowiest place in the lower 48 states.

again St Elias range and the Chugach range in southern Alaska I'm sure get every bit as much snow as the pacific

NW (i'm sure more. probably quite a bit more especially when it comes to the St Elias range) but of course there are

no measuring equipment in those places and even if there was it would be very very difficult to measure it with much

accuracy.

[BlizzardWx]

actually according to the following site the most snowfall recorded in Utah was 810 inches in 1984

http://www.currentre...owiest-year.php

While Alta gets a lot of snow there is no way its going to approach anything in the 1000 inch range

which is a very high mark that only the snowiest areas in the Washington Cascades have reached.

Specifically Mount Baker Ski resort which got 1,140 inches for the 1998-1999 season

The world record for the most snow in one year is now held by Mount Baker

(elevation: 10,775 feet / 3,285 meters) in Washington State, USA. The Mount

Baker Ski Area reported 1,140 inches (95 feet) / 2,896 cm (29 meters) of snowfall

for the 1998-99 season.

http://www.athropoli.../fact-baker.htm

The Paradise area right at the foot of the south face of Mount Rainer had the record before it was

broken with 1,122 inches for the 1971-1972 but probably has a higher Average than Mount Baker

Ski Resort.

here is their record of annual snowfall going back all the way to 1920.

http://www.nps.gov/m...e&pageid=457177

I knew that wasn't exact, it was just hearsay. Thanks for the clarification on this. Either way like you have said its impressive for its inland location.

[A-L-E-K]

Gotta love the Cascades when the trough is in the west. 8' possible by Thursday...

P & C for Mt. Rainier @ 12330':

Today: Snow showers. High near 7. Breezy, with a west southwest wind 13 to 16 mph increasing to between 23 and 26 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Tonight: Snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around -3. West northwest wind between 8 and 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Tuesday: A 40 percent chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy and cold, with a high near 10. West northwest wind between 8 and 16 mph. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Tuesday Night: A 40 percent chance of snow. Cloudy, with a low around -1. Northwest wind 7 to 10 mph becoming south southwest. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

Wednesday: Snow. High near 13. Southwest wind between 13 and 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 33 to 39 inches possible.

Wednesday Night: Snow showers. Low around -2. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 23 to 29 inches possible.

Thursday: Snow showers. High near 7. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

Today: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 16. Windy, with a southwest wind 33 to 36 mph decreasing to between 18 and 21 mph. Winds could gust as high as 43 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 37 to 43 inches possible.

Tonight: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 12. Windy, with a southwest wind between 50 and 55 mph, with gusts as high as 70 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 34 to 40 inches possible.

Wednesday: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Temperature rising to near 16 by noon, then falling to around 9 during the remainder of the day. Windy, with a west southwest wind 45 to 50 mph decreasing to between 20 and 25 mph. Winds could gust as high as 60 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 18 to 24 inches possible.

Wednesday Night: Snow showers likely. Cloudy, with a low around 4. West wind around 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Thanksgiving Day: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 9. Windy, with a southwest wind 24 to 27 mph increasing to between 36 and 39 mph. Winds could gust as high as 47 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 20 to 26 inches possible.

Thursday Night: Snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around -7. Windy. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 16 to 22 inches possible.

Friday: Snow showers likely. Cloudy and cold, with a high near 1. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

[Chicago WX]

Today: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 16. Windy, with a southwest wind 33 to 36 mph decreasing to between 18 and 21 mph. Winds could gust as high as 43 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 37 to 43 inches possible.

Tonight: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 12. Windy, with a southwest wind between 50 and 55 mph, with gusts as high as 70 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 34 to 40 inches possible.

Wednesday: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. Temperature rising to near 16 by noon, then falling to around 9 during the remainder of the day. Windy, with a west southwest wind 45 to 50 mph decreasing to between 20 and 25 mph. Winds could gust as high as 60 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 18 to 24 inches possible.

Wednesday Night: Snow showers likely. Cloudy, with a low around 4. West wind around 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Thanksgiving Day: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 9. Windy, with a southwest wind 24 to 27 mph increasing to between 36 and 39 mph. Winds could gust as high as 47 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 20 to 26 inches possible.

Thursday Night: Snow showers. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around -7. Windy. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 16 to 22 inches possible.

Friday: Snow showers likely. Cloudy and cold, with a high near 1. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

Wednesday night is a bit of a downer.

[PSUBlizzicane2007]

My mind can't even comprehend 1000+" of annual snowfall.

[Bob Chill]

My mind can't even comprehend 1000+" of annual snowfall.

Lol- Even if it happened in Ji's backyard he would still cancel winter.

[Zemu Glacier]

Check out the snow accumulation predicted for Mount Baker and Glacier Peak

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Baker/forecasts/3285

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Glacier-Peak/forecasts/3213

For some reason the Olympics aren't getting as much as the cascades so far this year

(last it year it was the Olympics that got the most snow in Washington)

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Olympus-2/forecasts/2427

[Zemu Glacier]

Check out some of these insane totals predicted for just Wednesday in the St Elias Range

Mount St Elias 78.7 inches

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Saint-Elias/forecasts/5489

Mount Fairweather 77.1 inches(59.8 inches just for the evening snowfall)

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Fairweather/forecasts/4663

Mount Hubbard 66.5 inches

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Hubbard/forecasts/4557

Mount Logan 58.7 inches

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Logan/forecasts/5959

and further south in the British Columbia Coast range

Mount Waddington is predicted to get 58.6 inches of snow today(Saturday)

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Waddington/forecasts/4016

[Zemu Glacier]

Looks like the two Himalayaen peaks Annapurna and Manaslu also receive enormous amounts

of snowfall(probably not as much as Kangchenjunga).

Manaslu, at 8163 meters, is the eighth highest peak in the world. It is located in

the west-central part of Nepal, and our team will climb it by the original route.

We will be climbing during the "spring" or " pre-monsoon" season, when the hazards

of weather and snow and avalanche are traditionally at their lowest.

But even climbing during spring this is how much it snowed

Our international team made a democratic (one member-one vote) unanimous decision to be

super-safe and cautiously descend the mountain, after we received 13 meters of snow in

30 days, and all of our tents were buried several times (luckily we brought tons of

extra equipment).

http://www.k2news.com/2003/m03dandis11.htm

and a book have on climbing the 14 8000 meter peaks says on page 33 that on the original

ascent of Annapurna it snowed 12-20 inches on most afternoons.

[Zemu Glacier]

Hello again people

 

I found some interesting information on this topic. First starting with the following(which will be it for today).

 

The following is based on Oregon State's Prism(Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) project.

"
Despite these impressive statistics, the wettest spot on Earth may be in the Coast Mountains of southeast Alaska, in
the high country about halfway between Juneau and Yakutat, according  to Jan Curtis of the Alaska Climate Research Center
at the Geophysical Institute. Curtis came  to this conclusion after looking at weather model data sent to him by George
Taylor, a climatologist  at Oregon State University. After studying Taylor's Alaska map, which is color-coded for amount
of precipitation, Curtis saw a great black spot in the mountains southeast of Yakutat. The black mark meant that the area
should receive more than 450 inches of precipitation (rain and the water from snow if it all was melted) each year. That
spot, an area between Glacier Bay and the Pacific Ocean at about 10,000 feet, may be the wettest spot on Earth.
"

http://www2.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF14/1440.html

through email communication with Jan Curtis I found out that this "spot" is on the windwward side(which generally means
the SW or WSW side) of a 12,000 foot mountain called Mount Crillon in the fairweather range(which is at the southern end
of the Saint Elias range) but that instead of the spot being around  10,000  feet it was actually around 2000 meters which
in feet is about 6500 feet.  Now it goes without saying that most of that precipitation would be in the form of snowfall.

Here is the wiki on Mount Crillon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Crillon

For the record I think the wettest spot in world is most likely in Colombia or maybe in the East Khasi Hills in India
rather than the this spot on Mount .


Here is also the prism precipitation map for Alaska and you can clearly see that the Saint Elias Mountains(along
with two small areas within the Chugach range) are predicted to get the most precipitation.


 

 

It doesn't include that black mark for that super wet spot on Mount Crillion(just too small to include I guess)

[Mallow]

Sapporo, Japan, at less than 200' elevation, averages over 230" of snow a year. They average around 43" of total precip (rain and melted snow) per year, so we'll define an "annual snow-rain ratio" for them of 5.38.

 

Their wet season is from August through January, so it straddles a period where temperatures are borderline. This implies that the mountains around Sapporo (and on the north part of the main Japanese Island of Honshu, which get even more precip), which rise above 4,000', must have a better annual snow-rain ratio in addition to getting more total precipitation. Let's conservatively set the annual snow-rain ratio at 4,000' to 7.

 

Here's a precip map of Japan:

 

 

Sapporo is in the 1,000-1,200mm range there. The mountainous areas nearby get up to 2,000mm annually, and on northern Honshu the numbers get as high as 2,800mm. If we assume a 7.0 ratio, those mountainous areas are averaging as much as 772" of snow per year.

 

 

This might not beat the mountains of SE Alaska, but for a region right near a major population area, it's probably about the highest you'll find.

[Zemu Glacier]

Ok interestingly enough there is thread of the same name on a different forum.

Specifically here
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?29592-The-snowiest-place-on-Earth

 

This one is interesting because one poster(MClarkson) went back for the last three years and determined
which mountains are the snowiest based on forecast data.  You can see the results in the last post.

As for the results, well it does include many of the areas I would have thought get heavy snow. Having
said that I do have questions.

 

First I notice some of the listings are very generic and include areas that are vast in area such as
Peru, Antarctica, Iceland, Patagonia & Japan. What specific areas are being referred to when referencing
these countries and regions? I'm very much skeptical of the numbers for Antarctica given that generally
its a very dry continent although I do know that there are some areas(like Law Dome which as I recall
gets a high accumulation rate) do get decent snowfall but I doubt as much as Mount Baker, Mount Rainier,
Mount Saint Elias, Kanchenjunga or Mount Waddington.

I'm also familiar with(to some degree) accumulation rates from Ice core drilling from glaciologists(I'm
not a glaciologist just for the record) and according to the data for Chimborazo and mount Everest,
they both have low accumulation rates which would seem to contradict the notion they receive the heavy
snowfall suggested in that list.

So in the case of Chimborazo its accumulation is below 1.00 MWE/Year(meters water equivalent). Specifically
"0.7 mwe.yr-1 o" according to this source

http://www.iwra.org/congress/2008/resource/authors/abs300_article.pdf

 

or "0.5 MWE." according to the following source(table 1 which also lists accumulation rates for other
Andean peaks such as Huascaran which had an accumulation rate of 1.3 which was the highest for those
listed).

http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/mathias/pubs/Vimeux_et_al_2009.pdf

 

and 0.45 for an accumulation rate for the north side of Mount Everest according to the following source
http://lindseynicholson.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Benn-et-al..-2012.-Earth-Science-Reviews.-Response-of-debris-covered-glaciers-in-the-Mount-Everest-region-to-recent-warming-and-implications-for-outburst-flood-hazards2.pdf

 

So the accumulation rates for Mount Everest do not seem to indicate such heavy snowfall that was suggested
in that list. Of course I'm sure it would heavier on the south side but that much more? Kind of doubt it. 
I certainly can't see Mount Everest getting as much snowfall as Kanchenjunga, Annapurna Manaslu,(or more
than Rainer or Mount Cook for that matter).  According to precipitation maps  I've seen of Nepal the area
around Annapurna and Manaslu should get the heaviest snowfall in Nepal.

 

So here is a precipitation map of Nepal to see what I'm talking about

http://www.atozmapsdata.com/zoomify.asp?name=Country/Modern/Z_Nepal_Precip

 

 

I still have a lot more to say about this topic and in particular the results from that MClarkson

[tamarack]

It doesn't include that black mark for that super wet spot on Mount Crillion(just too small to include I guess)

 

The top end of range for the gray areas is 13,000 mm, which comes to about 512".  Even without the super-wet black spot, might there be a 3,000" location around there?

 

For lower 48 towns, Hooker, NY, at 1,800' on the Tug Hill Plateau, runs about 240"/yr, perhaps 10% above Boonville.

[Zemu Glacier]

Tamarack

not sure I understand your question
"Even without the super-wet black spot, might there be a 3,000" location around there?"

I will say that the highest precipitaion areas of that prism precipitation map lists rather
large areas in the Saint Elias range receiving between 7,000 and 13,000 MM of precipitation
but from that you can't see what are the highest areas within that range.

I do wish in the future that prism applies their technology to patagonia, Colombia, New zealand
and the Himalayas(especially patagonia)



Now getting back to this post from MClarkson in that other forum. MClarkson lists Pico Cristóbal
Colón and Nevada del Huila as taking the first and third positions in terms of snowfall prediction
amounts for the last 3 years. Well I've been following closely one particular forecasting site for
mountains the  last 2 years  (I've got mixed feelings about the quality of the site mind you. There
are others).   the first year  Nevada del Huila seemed to get more snowfall than any other mountain
but within the last  year the amount  of snowfall predicted for Nevada del Huila seemed to be nowhere
near what what was  predicted the previous  year.  For that first year Nevada del Huila seemed to
defintely get more snowfall  than Cristobal but this past year it seems Cristobal defintely is getting
more snowfall than Nevada del Huila.

 

also the ratio listed is 10 to 1 but given that many of the mountains listed are close to the ocean
isn't that kind of a big ratio to assume? Shouldn't it be smaller?

[wxmeddler]

My candidate:

Mawson Peak (9,006 ft/2,745m) in the Heard Islands of the southern ocean. The climate record there on the island is very incomplete but 1300-1900mm/yr seems to be the norm. Note the climate record is at sea level and thus is not representative topographical effects of the nine thousand foot mountain.

 

Check out the forecast (GFS based I assume).

[Zemu Glacier]

wxmeddler

along similar lines there is also Mount Paget(9,629 ft at -54.433333,-36.55) in the south Georgia islands which
one glaciaologist (can't remember what his name was but I will try and search this information) put along with some
areas in Patagonia, as essentially the snowiest place on earth.  I used to think it could have been about 10 to 15
years ago but forcasting websites so far(or at least one) haven't suggested that Mount Paget gets all that much.

Here is the wiki for Mount Paget

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Paget

[tamarack]

Tamarack

not sure I understand your question

"Even without the super-wet black spot, might there be a 3,000" location around there?"

I will say that the highest precipitaion areas of that prism precipitation map lists rather

large areas in the Saint Elias range receiving between 7,000 and 13,000 MM of precipitation

but from that you can't see what are the highest areas within that range.

 

 

Sorry for being a bit obscure in my earlier post.  The point I tried to make was this: If somewhere in that map's gray areas hits the top of that range, they would have over 500" of total precip.  At an avg of 6:1 (seems reasonable given latitude and elevation), that would make for 3,000" (250 feet) annual snowfall.

[Zemu Glacier]

Sorry for being a bit obscure in my earlier post.  The point I tried to make was this: If somewhere in that map's gray areas hits the top of that range, they would have over 500" of total precip.  At an avg of 6:1 (seems reasonable given latitude and elevation), that would make for 3,000" (250 feet) annual snowfall.

 

 

Yes true but you wouldn't know which points in that map actually do get in the 13,000 MM

range and thus would have no idea where that super wet spot actually is which was my point

when I said

 

 I will say that the highest precipitation areas of that prism precipitation map lists rather

 large areas in the Saint Elias range receiving between 7,000 and 13,000 MM of precipitation

 but from that you can't see what are the highest areas within that range.

 

[Zemu Glacier]

Focusing on Patagonia for a while, another interesting possibility is Monte San Valentin which is the highest point in
Patagonia but is not in the SPI  but the NPI. I say interesting because there is conflicting information on whether Monte
San Valentin would be a place of heavy snowfall depending on if the source is from weather forecasting websites or
looking at accumulation rates based on ice core drilling.

 

Based on forecasting websites Monte San Valentin would seem to be one of the very best choices to consider(maybe
the best). On the other hand, its much more mixed according to Ice Core drilling where some research has said the
accumulation rates at Monte San Valentin was low to moderate while another said that it was low from about 1965 to
2005 and then from 2005 to 2007 sharply increased to 3250 mm w.e. 

 

The following source(table 1) lists the accumulation rate of Monte San Valentin as .2 which was the lowest listed.

http://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/mathias/pubs/Vimeux_et_al_2009.pdf

This next site paints a more complicated picture(this was the source that said the accumulation rate of Monte
San Valentin was 3250 mm w.e. from 2005 and 2007 which is a decent accumulation rate)

http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/58/68/42/PDF/Moreno-Isabel-2011-archivage.pdf

 

The site says that some models predict an accumulation rate between 8000(PRECIS) & 4000(GFS) mm w.e.

(6700 mm w.e. FROM eSCOBAR) which would indicate heavy snowfall predictions.

 

These sources do seem to say that "wind scouring" would blow off much of the snowfall which would reflect some

of the lower accumulation rates of Monte San Valentin.

 

There is also the issue of location. Monte San Valentin is basically located at the extreme NE edge of the NPI so I
would wonder how much precipitation would be available that far to the east(precipitation drops very quickly in
Patagonia as you go eastward)

[tamarack]

Yes true but you wouldn't know which points in that map actually do get in the 13,000 MM

range and thus would have no idea where that super wet spot actually is which was my point

when I said

 

 I will say that the highest precipitation areas of that prism precipitation map lists rather

 large areas in the Saint Elias range receiving between 7,000 and 13,000 MM of precipitation

 but from that you can't see what are the highest areas within that range.

 

 

All true, but since precip generally increases with altitude (up to a point) and especially on slopes facing the prevailing winds, it's probable that the highest precip areas in the gray are up high enough for most of it to be frozen.  We can't say how close to 13K mm those places are, but it stands to reason that they would not be too far from the high end, or the spread would be smaller.  Of course, without someone up there with a lo-o-ong measuring stick, this is all hypothetical.  (But fun... Thanks for all the info.)

[Zemu Glacier]

All true, but since precip generally increases with altitude (up to a point) and especially on slopes facing the prevailing winds, it's probable that the highest precip areas in the gray are up high enough for most of it to be frozen.  We can't say how close to 13K mm those places are, but it stands to reason that they would not be too far from the high end, or the spread would be smaller.  Of course, without someone up there with a lo-o-ong measuring stick, this is all hypothetical.  (But fun... Thanks for all the info.)

 

"Of course, without someone up there with a lo-o-ong measuring stick, this is all hypothetical"

 

I wonder if snow measuring technology will ever be so sophisticated and advanced that one day we might be able to secure very tightly

(like on a rock or buried deep within a glacier or ice field) some device that would be able to accurately measure how much snowfall in

such remote areas and record it electronically which could be picked up every so often during relatively stable periods of weather(or

maybe communicate with a satellite every so often)  Of course safety would be very important issue here.  Some areas I'm sure might

just be to avalanche prone to get to but you know if we can send a rocket to mars where a robot was essentially dropped off which then sends information back to us for research purposes, there is no reason to believe that we can't do this or that we don't have the means to think of a way to do this now but of course who would think it would be worth funding such research?

[Zemu Glacier]

So what other potential areas in Patagonia might be candidates for the heaviest snowfall? Well I already discussed the upper part of Tyndall Glacier(-50.984722,-73.52 ) and Monte San Valentin but my favorite choice might be a volcano called Aguilera(around 7500 feet or 8300 feet depending on the source).  I think Aguilera would be a good choice because

 

1) its at a decent elevation

2) is far to the west on the SPI and thus is very close to  the Ocean 

3) is very close to the 50 degree latitude((-50.334504 or  -50.402391 depending on the source)  where precipitation
is supposed to be very heavy. 

 

The area just to the west of here and a bit to the north (like around -50.24855,-73.843789, -50.16079,-73.835464 and -50.190391,-73.836622) seem to be good candidates  for extreme heavy snowfall although they are only in the 1600 meter or 1700 meter range). There is only one forecasting website(actually two but one of them I only recently came aware of and in that case you can put the longitude and latitude of Aguilera to get the forecast) and its predictions have put Aguilera definitely on the above average side of snowfall but not as heavy as  Monte San Valentin or another volcano Lautaro(over 11,000 feet in the northern part of the SPI on the border of Chile and Argentina)

 

another good area to consider in Patagonia is cordon mariano Moreno (-49.483333°,-73.416667° or -49.320842,-73.416653 depending on the source) whose elevation is listed either at 3249 meters, 3490  meters (google has it over 3400 meters), 2,863 meters or 2244 meters depending on the source. If its over 3000 meters elevation then that would be higher than the vast majority of the SPI, close to the 50 degree mark and is relatively close to the Ocean but not as close as Aguilera. 

 

There are other areas within the SPI that are decent elevation, close to the ocean and close to the 50 degree mark such as around -50.131446,-73.595867 & -49.671488,-73.511367 and thus would be a good candidate for heavy snowfall

 

Well that's it for Patagonia for me.  I think next(like maybe tomorrow) I want to discuss the southern alps of New Zealand where is there is quite a bit  of conflicting information on how much snowfall it gets

[franklin NCwx]

Tolland, Connecticut

[wxdude64]

Tolland, Connecticut

Hahahaha....winner

[Zemu Glacier]

My candidate:

Mawson Peak (9,006 ft/2,745m) in the Heard Islands of the southern ocean. The climate record there on the island is very incomplete but 1300-1900mm/yr seems to be the norm. Note the climate record is at sea level and thus is not representative topographical effects of the nine thousand foot mountain.

 

Check out the forecast (GFS based I assume).

 

 

I'm really intrigued about this Mawson peak. I wasn't aware of it until you mentioned so I will be monitoring it from now on. It does seem to have very similar weather to Mount Paget of the South Georgia Islands and looking at the mountain forecasts this seems to be true

Mawson Peak

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mawson-Peak/forecasts/2745

http://www.viewweather.com/w2162819-weather-forecast-for-mawson_peak-heard_island_and_mcdonald_islands_general_.html

http://www.yr.no/place/Heard_Island_and_McDonald_Islands/Other/Mawson_Peak/

Mount Paget

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Paget

http://www.viewweather.com/w2132980-weather-forecast-for-mount_paget-south_georgia_and_the_south_sandwich_islands_general_.html

http://www.yr.no/place/South_Georgia_and_The_South_Sandwich_Islands/Other/Mount_Paget/

 

I will say that if we can expect very high levels of precipitatio on Mawson peak based on 1300-1900 mm precipitation levels at sea level then there would be even more reason to expect higher snowfall in the higher peaks in Patagonia and the northern Coast mountains bordering BC and Alaska just north and east of Little Port Walter, alaska and juneau alaska.  

Villa Puerto Edén is at sea level in chile located about -49.139, -74.453 and gets about 5,745 MM(226 inches) of precipitation a year. It also happens to be directly west of the Southern patagonia Icecap. In fact about 20 more miles east and you hit the Southern patagonia Icecap.  A little more than about 30 miles East NorthEast from Villa Puerto Edén you hit that 11,000 foot Lautaro Volcano I mentioned and about 40 to 45 miles east southeast you hit Cordón Mariano Moren (about as high as Lautaro Volcano according to some sources) which I mentioned.

Similar things holds for the northern Coast mountains bordering alaska & BC just northeast of Little Port Walter, alaska and juneau, alaska.  Little Port Walter gets about as much annual precipitation as Villa Puerto Edén(interestingly almost exactlty the same amount of annual precipitation as Villa Puerto Edén)  and is also at sea level. Although in the case of Little Port Walter its much farther away from the mountains in question(100 miles or so to the east northeast).  On the other hand there is juneau, alaska which is a little above sea level and about much about as close or closer to the mountains in question as Villa Puerto Edén is to those higher peaks of Patagonia but the precipitation levels of juneau are much less and in fact seem to be in the 1300-1900 MM range of Heard Islands.  So maybe that area on the border between Alaska and BC just northeast of juneau would be comparable to Mawson peak although Mawson peak I think would be about 2-3000 feet higher than those peaks.

 

[weathafella]

2/5/14 begins the Sapporo snow festival. We have 5 months to learn Japanese. Any takers?