Forecasters now say a wicked storm produced all-time records for snowfall for southern interior mountain passes.

Environment Canada meteorologist Matt MacDonald says the storm that started Thursday night dropped 97 centimetres of snow at the Coquihalla Summit and 103 cm at the Allison Pass in just under 48 hours.

“So this pineapple express was locked in right along the B.C. border with Washington state and Idaho for about a 48-hour period. As long as that thing is targeted at the passes, it’s just delivering consistent, heavy snow. And it didn’t really budge,” MacDonald says.

“Because the main axis of it remained just south of the border we never got into the real heat, where snow levels typically rise and switch over to rain. That never really happened with this system because it stayed just south of us. So once it started snowing, it just kept piling up. Pretty impressive amounts.”

MacDonald says weather records go back about 60 years for both of those mountain passes.

“Typically our big storms 30, 40, sometimes 50 centimetres of snow. But to get over a metre of snow in just a two-day period is really outstanding. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that record stay for quite some years to come.”

He also says 92 centimetres of snow fell at the Coquihalla summit in a 24-hour period, which is also a one-day record.

The Hope-Princeton Highway was closed for about 36 hours, from Thursday night to late Saturday morning, because of heavy snowfall, with a number of shorter closures on the Hope-to-Merritt section of the Coquihalla for that same reason.

(Photo: Twitter: TranBC)