Interesting Climate Statistics for US Mountain Summits

Introduction

I thought these statistics could be interesting for climbers. Here are some climate statistics for several mountains in the United States (arranged from coldest to warmest for lack of any better way to do it).

There are only a few mountain tops with weather statistics and most of them are located in the Eastern USA. There have been at one time several peaks in the Western US with weather data, but few of the weather stations below are currently operating, though the data is still available if you dig hard enough for it.

Temperatures

Denali is not surprisingly by far the coldest of all the mountain tops in the United States. In fact, during summer Denali is still colder than any location in the lower 48 is during winter. It is also the coldest place in the world outside Antarctica.

Obviously Mount Rainier is by far the coldest of all these mountain tops in the lower 48. Interestingly though, Mount Rainier is about the same temperature in winter as Pikes Peak or Mount Washington. It is however, much colder in summer.

Mount Evans and Pikes Peak are much farther south than Mount Rainier, but I assume that the Pacific air on Mount Rainier keeps the mountain “milder”, temperature wise in winter than it would otherwise be. Mount Rainier is by far a much wetter and stormier mountain (precipitation wise) than Pikes Peak. Average annual precipitation at the summit is around 85 inches, which is significantly lower than the average of 117 inches of precipitation at Paradise Ranger Station at 5500 feet. Mount Washington averages near 99 inches, but the summers are too “warm” for glaciers to form.   Locations such as White Mountain Peak (California), White Mountain 2 (California), Pikes Peak (Colorado), and Climax/Fremont Pass (Colorado) sit in rain shadows, and are thus very dry considering the altitude.  The mountains around Alta and Snowbird (such as Mount Baldy with an estimated average annual snowfall of 732 inches) Utah are probably the snowiest locations in the Rocky Mountains and snowfall compares well to the snowiest locations in the Cascades, though water content is much lower, and permanent snow and glaciers are almost non-existent, with only a few small remnants remaining.

White Mountain Peak in California is colder than Mt Washington on average, but is a little warmer than Mount Washington in winter. It is still warmer than one might expect, but part of that may be attributed to the fact that temperatures in the area have been on the hot side since data has been available. On average, White Mountain 2 at a lower elevation is as cold as Mount Washington. However, it is also “warmer” in winter and cooler in the summer than Mount Washington.

Mount Mitchell is much warmer than these other peaks, but interestingly the all time record low (-34) is almost as cold as the other locations (except Denali). Mount Washington has recorded temperatures down to -47, Mount Evans down to -40, Pikes Peak down to -39, Mount Mansfield down to -39, Mount Rainier down to -36, and White Mountain 2 down to -35. All these mountains only have a span of 13 degrees between their all time record lows.