JACKSON, WY — Exactly how big is the snow pile in the fairgrounds parking lot, where Public Works has been storing removed snow for the winter?
Really, really big. Like, 50.5 feet tall with a volume of 111,400 cubic yards. Matt Gotham and Reed Armijo from Jorgensen Engineering were able to fly a drone over the parking lot to calculate the height and volume.
The pile has been accumulating all winter. It’s where Public Works puts all the snow they’ve removed from streets and parking lots throughout the season. And it’s been a BIG winter — according to The Mountain Town News, as of March 19, 2019 is tied with 1952 as the deepest snowpack ever for that date in Jackson.
Sam Jewinson, Jackson’s Streets Manager, estimates roughly 10,000 truckloads of snow have been hauled to the lot. “At roughly 65-70 seconds per truck loading time,” said Jewison, “that’s nearly 4.5 weeks of continuous loading.”
Town Manager Larry Pardee estimated that the size of the snow pile’s footprint was approximately 2.75 acres at the base.
So, back to the essential question on everyone’s mind: how many snowmen could this make?
According to Roy Pruett, a Professor of Electrical Engineering Technology at Bluefield State College, it takes almost 19 cubic feet of snow to build the engineer’s “ideal snowman.” With this calculation in mind, the amount of snow contained in Jackson’s snow storage pile could, in theory, be used to make approximately 169,673 snowmen. Jackson, Wyoming’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is 10,532. This would equate to about 16 snowmen for each individual in Jackson.
That’s a lot of snowmen. Some might even say it has been the winter of the snowmanapocalyse.
Check out this sweet video of the snow pile.
