For what it's worth: snowfall in the Sierras is very wet and heavy, known as "Sierra cement" i.e., no powder—pretty much the opposite. Despite the record dumping down here, you'd be better off just heading to Baker or Crystal.

Even at 22 degrees?

@2 - Yep. The airmass that dumped all that snow blew through the Pineapple Express in the Pacific, giving it about a 6:1 snow/liquid ratio. Average is 10:1, powder closer to 20:1. Good for our reservoirs, bad for winter sports.

I don't really know the correlation between air temperature and snow quality (you know what I mean), or how much of a factor it really is—growing up I always figured snow was snow; but alas, (in a fake Harvard accent now) Utah and Colorado really do the fluffy white stuff exceptionally well.

Oh just in case, those ratios: 10:1 means 10 inches of snow equal 1 inch of liquid, so the lower the leading number, the wetter the snow. Without knowing that it might look like it hints at some sort of density that'd imply just the opposite.

Roger. Farthest east I've ridden was in Idaho, but the stuff was like the best days at Baker, and I rode there for 7 years. I'd love to get to Colorado and/or Utah sometime.

As someone who can pretend to be a bigger expert than you, I say phooey to your claims of bad snow in the Sierras. That's just sour grapes from someone who isn't there.
Mammoth is getting very decent quality snow and enough of it to make for a damn fine time. If the snow was as light and fluffy as you imagine your perfect powder to be, you'd sink to the bottom and drown.
The term Sierra Cement comes into play in the afternoon when the sun comes out and last night's fluffy snow gets firmer, just like it does here except Cement doesn't sound as good with Cascade in front of it.
Good for Mammoth that they're getting the snow. Hopefully it will keep all those douchebags down there and not getting in the way up here.

@6 - don't mean to imply it sucks up there, and I'm not saying powder is everything (I know plenty of people that don't ever leave the park course or the half-pipe). I'm saying it's not worth a trip from Seattle since his local options are just as good.

Baker get's more fresh snow than... well, anywhere. It all depends what you're lookin' for.

Ski BC. Revelstoke and Nelson are fine, and so is Rossland.

As a Sierran resident (west side), the snow IS good and we're set for the year (barring rain-on-snow events). My local ski area has about 7-8 feet of fresh snow and I went yesterday. Of course, getting greedy, I got stuck in some amazingly deep powder after lunch and I had to call it a day.

But it's on like Donkey Kong.