First Major Snowfall Drops A Foot On Beartooth Highway & Parts of Wyoming

When the Beartooth Highway closed at noon Friday, there wasn’t a single snowflake on the pavement. By Monday afternoon, U.S. 212 was still closed as nearly 1 foot of fresh snow was being plowed off the road with no estimated time for reopening. 

Several corridors through Yellowstone National Park were closed for most of the weekend due to "hazardous weather and road conditions." The National Park Service emphasized that these weren't likely to be "season-ending closures," but it was enough to keep some roads closed until Monday.

The snow is being cleared because the Beartooth Highway and South, East, and West Entrances of Yellowstone aren't scheduled to close. Not yet, at least.

“The hard closure dates for the Beartooth Highway have been scheduled for October 15, just like last year,” said Cody Beers, spokesperson for the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT). “The National Park Service is up there assessing things, and Montana will be up there doing their thing, but the goal is to reopen before we close it.”

The first significant snowfall of the season seemed to come out of nowhere. Meteorologists aren’t ready to call it a “trendsetter,” but the weekend’s weather shows that the threat of winter weather is becoming more potent.

“We are at the time of year where we start to see snow,” said Taylor Wittman with the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Riverton. “This is the first significant snowfall, and it was quite a bit, but we have some time in terms of the winter yet to come.”

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

The snow reports collected by NWS Riverton revealed that most of the weekend snow fell above 9,000 feet in Wyoming’s mountains. There wasn’t as much as the 16 inches anticipated, but many spots came close.

“From what I'm seeing from these observations, we got between 6 and 10 inches, mostly above 9,000 feet,” Wittman said. “Some observations are a little higher, maybe 12 inches, but that’s based on liquid amounts rather than measurements.”

These snowfall amounts were determined based on devices that collect liquid precipitation in the mountains, rather than direct observations and measurements. Wittman said that most of the snow melted quickly when it fell or will mostly melt over the next week.

“The higher elevations, like Togwotee Pass, did keep some of their snow, but that will likely melt with the higher temperatures this week,” he said. “The snow you see on the mountains today might stick around for a few days, but a lot of that will melt away.”

Even if it’s not unusual to see this much snow in the first week of October, Wittman classified the weekend’s weather as a “significant” winter weather event. It seemed to come out of nowhere, with a lot of intensity, after a mild September with little winter weather.

“This year was a little notable in the sense that we didn't have a precursor or appetizer,” he said. “We had a little bit of snow in the mountains a couple of weeks earlier, but this was the first significant snowfall, and it probably hit people hard compared to other years.”

Snowfall wasn’t persistent below 9,000 feet, but that doesn’t mean it was entirely absent. Wittman said there were multiple reports of snowflakes in areas as low as 5,000 feet.

“Even if it was just people seeing snowflakes, or maybe even a little accumulation on the grass in the morning, we did see some snow at the lower elevations,” he said. “That shows it was cold enough for snow to form and fall, even if it wasn’t impactful.”

A Winter Wonderland In Fall

Pinedale photographer Dave Bell ventured into the Wind River Mountains on Sunday while the snow was still falling. At an elevation of 9,200 feet, the sights that greeted him on the Skyline Scenic Drive were “absolutely stunning.”

“I had everything from sunny skies to clouds coming and going, sunshine, diffused light, blue skies, and fog banks,” he said. “There was still enough color in lots of places, with snow-covered aspens with leaves still on the trees, to give you the wow factor. It was an incredible experience.”

Bell definitely found a golden zone for photography. He spent five hours watching the landscape change around him and capturing the colorful aspens and cottonwoods peeking out under a blanket of wet snow.

“By the time I got to the Upper Overlook, at about 9200 feet, there was a solid 4 to 6 inches of snow,” he said. “When I drove to Elkhart Park, a little closer to the mountains, there was at least 8 inches up there. The Wind Rivers were very, very white that morning.”

Without so much color and the pristine white snow, Bell got the best of both worlds. He had already heard that this fall had been “a tremendous color year,” and he got to experience it with an icing of winter covering the brilliant kaleidoscope of fall.

“I have not seen vivid yellows on cottonwoods like that in years,” he said. It’s been a beautiful year for a variety of colors: reds, oranges, golds, yellows, and greens. There was the complete palette of colors across the hillsides.”

Bell suspects many of those leaves have fallen since the snow started melting, but he encouraged anyone who hasn’t been able to take in the peak color to get out there while they can. As for the snow, he appreciated it for the moments it gave him.

“Ask me how I feel about the snow in January, but for that day, it was absolutely gorgeous,” he said. “Having the best of winter and fall doesn't happen very often, that's for sure. It was the best of both worlds.”

Incoming?

As of Monday afternoon, most of Wyoming had warmed up under sunny skies. Many roads in Yellowstone National Park that closed due to snow over the weekend had reopened for the final weeks of the summer season.

Wittman said Wyomingites don’t need to worry about more winter weather this week. There isn’t anything in the near future that looks significant enough to penetrate the lower elevations.

“We will be warming up as we go through the week,” he said. “We'll probably be back into the normal to above-normal temperatures, in the upper 60s and 70s, by Wednesday.”

A system brewing over the Northern Pacific could manifest as high-elevation snowfall by the weekend, but Wittman said it’s too early to say with certainty. For the time being, most of Wyoming doesn’t have to worry about winter.

However, any hunters planning to venture into the mountains might want to take heed of these systems. They could easily find themselves unprepared if another wave of winter weather moves in, and it’s getting cold enough overnight to make snow stick.

“If you're still trying to get that fall recreation in, or you’re out hunting above 9,000 feet, you’ll have the greatest impacts from winter weather, like what we had over the past weekend,” he said. “In terms of the rest of Wyoming, it looks like we’ve got at least a little bit of time before we have to worry about winter.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.