Winter Storm — Upper Snake Highlands, Idaho

2017-01-07 to 2017-01-11 · Upper Snake Highlands, Idaho

Event narrative

A winter storm brought heavy snow, wind and difficult travel to the Upper Snake Highlands. Low elevation snow amounts were 7 inches in Driggs, Dubois and St Anthony. Amounts from SNOTEL sites were the following: 19 inches at Crab Creek, 41 inches at Island Park, and 45 inches at White Elephant. The combination of snow and wind closed the following roads the morning of the 11th: Highway 32 from Tetonia to Ashton, Highway 33 from Newdale to Tetonia, and Highway 47 from Ashton to Bear Gulch.

Wider weather episode

A long dawn out atmospheric river event brought a variety of impacts to southeast Idaho including extremely heavy mountain snow, valley snow then rain on snow leading to flooding and roads covered with ice in the Snake River Plain, and many mountain avalanches. Many roads were closed for extended periods due to the heavy snow and avalanches. Custer County was declared a disaster area due to the prodigious snow amounts. An emergency declaration was signed in Cassia County due to the flooding.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 676874. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.