Snowiest place on earth

[Zemu Glacier]

About the southern Alps in New Zealand.

There is a lot of conflicting information about just how much snow the southern alps get. On the one hand looking at various forecasting websites, Mount Cook and Mount Tasman have not been getting much snowfall at least since I've been looking at these sites two years ago and least not the amounts I've seen advertised on many websites although so far winter there have been a number of big storms forecasted including one huge one predicted this Tuesday/wednesday (at least as of the time of this writing. By tomorrow the predictions could be much less)

http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Aoraki-Mount-Cook/forecasts/3754
http://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Tasman/forecasts/3498

http://www.viewweather.com/w3835521-weather-forecast-for-mount_cook-canterbury.html
http://www.viewweather.com/w3825241-weather-forecast-for-mount_tasman-new_zealand_general_.html

But these larger storms seem to be more than offset by long periods of dry weather at least according to these forcasting websites. Some of that might  be explained by the fact that at least for a part of the first half of 2013, New Zealand has been going through extreme drought conditions so maybe recent years have not been usual weather patterns.

On the other hand there are many references to Mount Cook, Mount Tasman or the glaciers in around Mount Cook and Mount Tasman (such as Fox or Tasman glacier) getting absolutely staggering amounts of snowfall but even here the amounts cited can vary widely. Here are some of these references


References for snowfall for Tasman glacier

"50 metres of winter and spring snowfall accumulates in the névé, of which seven metres survives the summer melt"

http://www.doc.govt.nz/documents/getting-involved/students-and-teachers/field-trips-by-region/canterbury/aoraki/aoraki-mt-cook-education-resource-colour.pdf

"annual snow fall of 50 meters (164 feet)"
http://www.thebigvoyage.com/new-zealand/nz-south-island-day-10-tasman-glacier/


References for snowfall on FOX glacier.

"close to 100 meters of snow on a yearly basis"
http://www.hickerphoto.com/picture/fox-glacier-summit-south-island-new-zealand-31243.htm

"80 to 100 meters of snowfall a year"
http://teacher.scholastic.com/zealand/glacier/colin.htm

"50-80 meters of snow annually."
http://doctorandcompanion.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/fox-glacier-water-in-many-forms/

"up to 45- 80 meters of snow a year"
http://sblevi.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-zealand-part-2.html

"upper section of the glacier gets more than 50 meters (150 feet) of snow each year."
http://brandonkoger.com/tag/fox-glacier/

"up to 50 meters of snow falls at the top of the glacier annually."
http://ericandcarolyn.blogspot.com/2013/03/bird-watching-and-glacier-hiking.html

"glacier can receive up to 50 meters of snow in a single year.
http://travelwithnateashley.blogspot.com/2013/01/tramping-on-fox-glacier.html

"over 50 meters of snowfall"(I assume thats annually)
http://tandemadventure.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_archive.html

"The highest point on the glacier receives 50 meters of snow a year"
http://scottandsarai.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

"30 to 60 meters" of snow falls at the neve
http://bikingdownunder-emily.blogspot.com/2012/01/fox-glacier.html

"The Neves receive up to 45 meters of snow each year"
http://kiwiscots.blogspot.com/2011/11/fox-glacier-heck-of-ride.html

"receives 45 meters of snow on average"(I assume thats annually)
http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/Fox-Glacier/blog-131004.html

neve getting "11 meters of snow per year."
http://live2tour.com/reflections-on-the-past-few-days/

"5 meters of snow at the top per year"
http://mccoyoioi.tumblr.com/post/46527742779/fox-glacier-brah-5-meters-of-snow-at-the-top-per

References for snowfall on Franz-Josef glacier.

"up to 60 meters of snow" (I assume thats annually)
http://24timezones.wordpress.com/page/6/

"up to 55 meters of snow on the glaciers" (I assume thats annually)
http://livermorenewzealand.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html

"collects 50 meters of snow per year"
http://webee.technion.ac.il/~adam/PERSONAL/NZ/

"about 50 meters of snow every winter"
http://stepsintoaustralia.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-ninty-three-one-hundred-and-one.html

"receives 40-50 meters of snow per year on average"
http://journals.worldnomads.com/mikeh/story/86919/New-Zealand/New-Zealand-South-Island

"At the base of Franz Josef there may be 4-5 meters of snowfall per year, but at the top there is about 45 meters of snowfall per year."
http://augsburgbiolog.blogspot.com/2009/05/franz-josef-glacier.html

"The top of the mountain range (where the glacier starts) is the WETTEST place on earth! On a good year they get 40 METERS of Snow, not feet, METERS! The record is 80 METERS!"
http://www.alexrothaus.com/2009/02/15/franz-joseph-glacier/

"up to 40 meters of snow accumulate each winter"
http://wesnorm2.blogspot.com/2011_01_12_archive.html

"The top of the glacier receives 40 meters of snow every year,"
http://steveandjanegoroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/02/catch-up-23-to-25-feb.html

"20 to 50 meters of snow a year"
http://www.girr.org/vacation_diaries/new_zealand_2007/new_zealand_2007_diary.html

"It gets about 30 meters of snow per year."
http://travelsized2.blogspot.com/2013/07/science-in-new-zealand.html

"30 meters of snow in its neve" per year
http://adventures-of-kirwin.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

References of snowfall on FOx and Franz-Josef glacier

neve "receive over 60 meters of snowfall annually"
http://sunneeland.com/tours.asp?country=NEW+ZEALAND&tour=South+Island%2C+New+Zealand&pn=20

"Up to 30 metres of snow falls on the nevé every year"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/travel/news/article.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10911255

"At the higher elevations, the snowfields get 20-30 METERS of snow in a single winter."
http://damarks.com/blog/?feed=rss2&cat=5

"up to 20 meters of snow each year"
http://www.gorentals.co.nz/blog/index.php/2011/10/17/glaciers-in-new-zealand/#sthash.Tq3WcSI1.dpuf"


some reference to 12 meter of snow in one month around Mount Cook

http://forums.ski.com.au/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=312942

So as you can see there are all these refereces and not much consistency although it does seem that the references for FOX glacier seem to concentrate in the 45-50 meter range and the references for Franz-Josef glacier seem to concentrate in the 35-45 meter range. I only found two refernces for Tasman glacier and both had it listed at 50 meters annual snowfall.  On the whole it does seem to suggest that the southern alps area around Mount Cook get incredible amounts of snow which the forecasting websites, so far, don't appear to corroborate.  Again this may be because New zealand or at least the southern Alps, have been going  through a dry spell this last year or two.

I would like to find some definitive credible scientific source that could settle once and for all all these contradictory references of snowfall measurements in and around Mount Cook. That first source for Tasman glacier seems the most credible of all the sources so far.
 

[Zemu Glacier]

Now about forecasting websites.

From observing various forecasting websites for the last 2 years it seems that Puncak Jaya(otherwise known as
Carstensz Pyramid) in Papua province, Indonesi is the snowiest place in the world(whether that is actually true
is very debatable).   Carstensz Pyramid is close to the equator but apparently is still high enough(a little over
16,000 feet at  the summit) to be cold enough to snow.  The snow forecasted usually aren't really big but
consistently  in the 6 inches to 18 inches area(at least according to one website) almost dailey.  Some other
websites might  have it as more.

I do wonder, however, in reality how much of the precipitation is actually snow rather than rain. http://www.mountain-forecast.com
usually has the summit temperature in the area between 30F-37 F.  Mountain expeditions I've read about
give me the impression that the precipitation is just as likely to be in the form of rain as snow and
certainly when it is snow much of it probably doesn't stick around for long.  Most pictures don't show too
much snow on Carstensz Pyramid(the most popular picture is of a steep rock face with usually no snow on it).

[Zemu Glacier]

I want to say something just about Mount Baker. While I think Mount Baker probably isn't quitein the category of the Fairweather Range and parts of Patagonia there is no conflicting informationhow much snow Mount Baker can get. There are about 3 streams of evidence that point to Mount
Baker getting very heavy snowfall which are

1) (the most everyone knows about) Its higher and closer to the ocean than Mount Baker Ski resort which has the highest measured annual official for the 1998-1999 season and so should get more snowfall than Mount Baker Ski resort and probably much more snowfall for certain
locations on the southwest side of the mountain and higher up.

2) forecasting websites(or at least http://www.mountain-forecast.com/) have in fact forecasted heavy snowfall for Mount baker(most likely in the top 10 worldwide that I've observed)

3) Glaciologist(lead by glaciologist MAURI PELTO) actually have done ice core drilling on rainbow and easton glacier's on Mount Baker.  The Ice Core drilling on Rainbow glacier(on the NE side of Mount Baker) was done at 1900  meters and while the ice core drilling on Easton glacier(on the south side of mount Baker) was  done at 2450 meters. The graph below shows what was estimaed for snowfall for both sites(Easton glacier is the one having the higher snowfall levels) between 1984 and 1999.



http://www.nichols.edu/departments/glacier/summer_snowpack_variations_with_.htm

So the estimated snowfall for Easton Glacier seems to range from about 31 meters to 58 meters.  Actually the the top ,which was in the 1998/1999, was probably higher than that since it said specifically "The minimum total snowfall for 1998/99 was then 57–59 m at 2450 m on
Easton Glacier, Mt. Baker".  Then when you consider that are probably areas further west and higher up that receive even higher snowfall amounts I wouldn't be surprised if some areas might average an annual snowfall of 50 meters or more.