Mount Shasta, CAL– On Presidents Day, Mount Shasta had a massive avalanche that could have flipped a truck or a rail car.
It wasn’t discovered until Wednesday by the Mount Shasta Avalanche Center And it was thought to have started at 12,000 feet in Avalanche Gulch, ran for over three miles, and stopped at 7000 feet.
Rated a D4, on the D-scale that assesses the destructive power of an avalanche, the President’s Day avalanche had the potential to destroy a railway car or even a large truck.
It had such force that it could have leveled buildings or even a substantial chunk of forest, however according to The Mount Shasta Avalanche Center, no human lives were in jeopardy, and there was no damage to any roads or infrastructure on the mountain.
This most recent avalanche was compared to a 2019 Valentine’s Day Avalanche and happened after near-constant snowfall on the mountain for four straight days.
A recording at The Old Ski Bowl weather station yielded 6.57 inches of water equating to 2.5 to 3 feet of snow near the treeline, with likely higher snowfall up the mountain.
