Early Closings start to roll in

[EMSC]

Granted just smaller places so far, but the weather has been horrible for skiing for basically the entire month of March in Colorado.

Each of these is a week earlier than planned:

Ski Cooper Closing this weekend
Monarch Closing April 7th weekend.

And Abasin has already closed Zuma bowl on the backside which is WAY earlier than normal (plus East Wall never opened this year either).

 

[Tony Crocker]

I also see Vail reporting 2564 out of 5289 acres open. That's a huge red flag. Less than half open going into their big Easter Week, not a pretty picture at all. Vail has had 19 inches in March, which will make it the driest in my 41 years of data. The 20 inches in December were 5th lowest for that month.

I'll be doing a month end update tomorrow, but I hadn't realized how dry March was in Colorado, as Utah and the Sierra have made up some of their early season deficits and of course it's been dumping all month in the 3 northern regions.

 

[EMSC]

I also see Vail reporting 2564 out of 5289 acres open. That's a huge red flag. Less than half open going into their big Easter Week, not a pretty picture at all. Vail has had 19 inches in March, which will make it the driest in my 41 years of data. The 20 inches in December were 5th lowest for that month.

I'll be doing a month end update tomorrow, but I hadn't realized how dry March was in Colorado, as Utah and the Sierra have made up some of their early season deficits and of course it's been dumping all month in the 3 northern regions.

Obviously each mtn region of Colo will be a touch different based on the tracks of the couple of storms that did come through, but for comparisons sake: Denver this year will end up with the 2nd warmest March ever recorded going back to the 1880's, as well as the least precipitation and least ever snow recorded in March - again going all the way back to the 1880's for records.

Thus why I have zero ski days since returning from Europe. Playing catch up on things at first of course, and then no strong desire to ski slush puddles and dirt the past few weeks. The mountains along the divide look like maybe late May type of snow cover as I look at them from my office...

Have to say if you have vacations planned for Colo in the next couple of weeks - change your plans now! go elsewhere! It's like 2002, or worse.

 

[Tony Crocker]

It's like 2002, or worse.

That season had fairly normal first half snowfall in Front Range Colorado but driest ever February-April. It's probably best remembered for the huge fires in May both in the Front Range mountains and Arizona.

1977 and 1981 I'm sure were the worst for the Colorado ski industry due to dry early seasons. This year was on a par with 1981 (not as bad as 1977) through the holidays but better from mid-January through February. March was the one good snow month in 1981 vs. February this year. The jury is still out for season totals because April can be big in Colorado, but overall worst season since 1981 is a fairly safe call.

With 2 regions having great years and another one above average, 2011-12 will not come close to the worst 4 seasons in my records. But by Patrick's metric of weighting skier visits it will look worse. The 3 highest skier visit regions are the ones having the worst seasons. 2011-12 will be one of very few seasons where weighting by skier visits will produce a much different result than weighting by geography.

 

[coldsmoke]

With 2 regions having great years and another one above average

I hope you are not including the Northern Rockies in that assessment. It has been extremely warm for a month now with zero quality snow preservation on any aspect except direct north. I skiid the north facing Headwaters at Moonlight the last two days because everywhere else was terrible.

It rarely rains above 7000 ft. this time of the year, I can't count how many times it has this season. Bridger has lost much of its higher terrain due to wet slides. When it does snow, it is usually a weird, heavy mixture.

There have been a few bright spots like my day with q at Discovery and I realize we have been luckier than other areas, but overall, 2011-2012 will not be remembered fondly and it is night and day compared to last year.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I stand corrected on the Northern Rockies. As in November the huge March PNW storms tracked more into Canada than directly west-to-east, surprising since Oregon has been pounded much more in March than November. Only Schweitzer is having a great season at 149%. Whitefish and Sun Valley are now slightly above average and the rest of the region is around 90% of average (a percentage any ski area farther south would be delighted to have). I agree that qualitatively 2011-12 was worse than that due to most of these areas not getting up to speed until late January. 2010-11 was tied for 5th highest snowfall season (overall 128%) in the Northern Rockies since 1976.

It rarely rains above 7000 ft. this time of the year, I can't count how many times it has this season. Bridger has lost much of its higher terrain due to wet slides. When it does snow, it is usually a weird, heavy mixture.

Tahoe has battled that during most of its big storm cycles. Squaw 6,200 snowfall has been less than half Squaw 8,200 snowfall this season (long term ratio is 61%). Bridger has had the worst 2011-12 season of any area in the Northern Rockies that I track.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Estimates by region through March:
California 70% There are 7 seasons lower than that, but like 1991 so much of it came late that it's probably 3rd worst for the ski areas.
Pacific Northwest 135% Could end up second highest to 1999 in my data since 1976, though some years in the early 1970's were probably better.
Interior Western Canada 135% March has been spectacular and Louise and Sunshine just set record highs with April still to come. Overall region may only be exceeded by those same early 1970's La Ninas.
Northern Rockies 100% Schweitzer is big like the above regions. Most areas are slightly below average with the slow early season.
Utah 75% Very bad early season, only somewhat below average since mid-January.
Northern and Central Colorado 65% Very bad early and March, average mid-season. If April is low it will be comparable to worst ever seasons 1977 and 1981.
Southwest 85% A decent December when everyone else was dry but nearly as bad as the rest of Colorado since.
Northeast 70% Likely second worst snowfall year to 1979-80. Qualitatively maybe worst ever given the recent meltdown, which I'm fairly sure is unprecedented.

I agree with coldsmoke's point about high rain/snow lines being a widespread issue this season across many regions. Even at places like Fernie getting tons of snow, there's been a lot of low elevation rain and mixed precip. So no surprise the places that look best are those like Louise and Sunshine safely above regional rain/snow lines.

What's most unusual is having so many very high and very low regions within the same season. The only other one like that was 2004-05. That year the Pacific Northwest and western Canada were the worst regions and California and Utah the best.

 

[snowave]

Steven's Pass is staying open weekends into May (official closing date was Mid April)... not sure that how common that is. Anyway... WA continues to get blasted... was up there scouting houses a week ago and was amazed at how much snow was in the Cascades.

I will find out Monday if my job takes me up there (Leavenworth, WA), so if it does... I will try and be a WA rep here on Liftlines... O

 

[Admin]

I was speaking with the guys in the Deep Powder House in Alta today. One of them spoke yesterday with Liam Fitzgerald, lead avalanche forecaster in LCC for UDOT, who told him that at the moment we're over 3" of liquid precipitation below the driest season on record in 1976-77. If we continue on that pace this will be the driest season on record.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Alta had 298 inches of snow in 1976-77 and is already at 327 this year.
Only 3 other years under 400:
375 in 1980-81
377.5 in 2006-07
395 in 1991-92
Average April at Alta is 78 inches, so this April needs to be below average for 2011-12 to join that group under 400.

 

[Admin]

Read again: water equivalent.

Sent from my Android device using Tapatalk

 

[coldsmoke]

at the moment we're over 3" of liquid precipitation below the driest season on record in 1976-77.

This is a more telling stat than inches of snow. I love skiing a big dump of cold smoke but it does little for coverage and long-term base building.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Read again: water equivalent.

Alta's 2011-12 SWE of 29.26 inches is 8.96% water content vs. long term average of 8.55%. I would not try to make the argument that 1976-77 was a year unusually high in water content because in avalanche research I have read the opposite. For the 267 inches through March 1977 to have 32.26 inches water would be 12.08%, sorry I'm not buying that. In this study http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/meeti ... gu2005.pdf Alta in 1976-77 is cited as an extreme example of a continental snowpack when Alta is in most years characterized as an Intermountain climate for avalanche classification. That means much colder than normal temperatures, unlikely to be associated with abnormally high water content of the snow. There's a graph in the above reference of both snowfall and SWE from UDOT at Alta, and while it does not contain exact numbers it's clear enough that water content was well below 10%.

Brighton and Park City are also slightly past their season totals of 1976-77. As at Mt. Bachelor, I suggest you check the details of your source, and perhaps go to Alta patrol for corroboration.

 

[Admin]

Whatever, it's what I was told. It doesn't matter at all to me whether it's just above or just below the all-time record. Same difference. No matter how you look at it this season has sucked overall with moments of brilliance.

Sent from my Android device using Tapatalk

 

[EMSC]

More large quantities of terrain are closing up early (as opposed to entire resorts - so far)

Steamboat is shutting the entire lower mountain as of today
Copper has shut Tucker Mtn, all of Copper bowl, Resolution lift and A lifts for the season already...
Breck has shut ~500 acres scattered about the mtn so far
Etc...

It was over 80F in Denver both days of the weekend, though with 3-6" predicted for today in the mtns... Just enough to hide rocks and prevent more melt off for a couple days.

 

[egieszl]

Ski areas don't report water content, they report inches of snow, so for sake of discussion it's really irrelevant.

This year sucked, but for those who remember the 76-77 winter (I don't), it seems they remember it as much worse than this one. I've yet to hear anyone say this one is drier.

 

[Tony Crocker]

This year sucked, but for those who remember the 76-77 winter (I don't), it seems they remember it as much worse than this one. I've yet to hear anyone say this one is drier.

1976-77 was bad in all 7 western regions and the record driest in my 36 years of credible data in 5 of the 7. It was 3rd worst in Northern and Central Colorado and tied for 3rd worst in interior western Canada. Northern and Central Colorado is the only region in which this season has a chance of being as bad as 1976-77.

One difference is that this year is likely second worst of those 36 years in the Northeast while 1976-77 was the second best.

 

[Admin]

Alta had 298 inches of snow in 1976-77 and is already at 327 this year.
Only 3 other years under 400:
375 in 1980-81
377.5 in 2006-07
395 in 1991-92
Average April at Alta is 78 inches, so this April needs to be below average for 2011-12 to join that group under 400.

From today's Utah Avalanche Center report:

We looked at snow numbers yesterday from the Alta Guard Station and found that this season has even less snow for this time of year than the previous record low snow season of 1976-77. We have a measly 283 inches so far and if we get less than 30 inches between now and the end of April, we will officially break the over-60-year record for the least amount of snow in a season. Wow! So if this seems like a horrible winter it's because it IS.

Sent from my HP TouchPad running Android 4.0 ICS