Europe 24/25

[Tony Crocker]

Europe and North America latitudes.

It's called the Gulf Stream. One of the doomsday climate scenarios is that melting continental ice shuts down the Gulf Stream, resulting in western Europe having the same climatology as the similar latitudes in Canada. This occurred regularly at the end of big ice ages when the North American continental ice released into the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence River. Skeptics point out that the volume of the North American continental ice was vastly greater than what's in Greenland.

Current climatology on that overlay only matches up with SoCal and coastal Morocco.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

I'm pretty sure James has an allergic reaction to even a single crowd to be avoided. Which is ironic given that he lives in Jersey right next to one of the largest cities in the world.

Not sure whether to address this ^^ increasingly exaggerated narrative, hah. Tony and Liz have skied with me at three different mega resorts in the Alps (Courchevel/3V, Serre Chevalier, and Val d'Isere/Tignes) and at no point did they witness my head exploding.

I'll look the other way for now.

 

[Tony Crocker]

at no point did they witness my head exploding

The end-of-day run down to La Daille was fairly close, mostly about the ice skating rink surface, but the number of bodies was a major contributor to that.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

The end-of-day run down to La Daille was fairly close, mostly about the ice skating rink surface, but the number of bodies was a major contributor to that.

Fair enough. As I recall, my consternation was because you insisted repeatedly that we go to the bottom instead of downloading, and against my better judgement I let myself be talked into it!

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Fraser from Weather to Ski is with his family at Les Crosets on the Swiss side of the Portes du Soleil. A few pix on Facebook if interested to see what the yin/yang snowpack looks like heading into April.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I wonder why Fraser went there when he's been posting all season about how threadbare the lower elevations are. Exposure is not great either. Did he forget his own snow quality equation?

 

[jamesdeluxe]

The end-of-day run down to La Daille was fairly close, mostly about the ice skating rink surface,

Now that I think about it, I had a similar moment the previous year at Serre Chevalier, also during a long drought. The upper 2/3 of the ski area was in surprisingly good shape, both on- and offpiste, however, the bottom 1,500 verts into the village were concrete, almost as bad as at Val d'Isere. I noted at the time that Tony and Liz were far more tolerant of that surface, even with wider skis, than me/the ECer.

 

[Sbooker]

In Amsterdam for the first time. You’ve heard the stories of sex and debauchery and drugs?

 

[Tony Crocker]

Tony and Liz were far more tolerant of that surface, even with wider skis, than me/the ECer.

Even though he lives there, IIRC James learned to ski in Colorado and not that much of his lifetime skiing is in the Northeast. Surely Liz has far more NE experience. As for me, I saw my fair share of hardpack during my formative ski seasons in SoCal, and there are also some spring days when it does not warm up as much or as fast as I expect.

In Amsterdam for the first time.

Some of our friends were on a river cruise there a few years ago, but in the second half of April. I'm surprised so many flowers are out this early at that latitude. To the extent we get spring flowers in SoCal, now is about the peak.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Even though he lives there, IIRC James learned to ski in Colorado and not that much of his lifetime skiing is in the Northeast.

Not true. I learned to downhill ski in the northeast at age 37 and the majority of days during my first 15 seasons were there (blue font). The winter of 2015-16 was when I became primarily a long-haul destination skier, increasingly eastbound.

 

[jasoncapecod]

In Amsterdam for the first time. You’ve heard the stories of sex and debauchery and drugs?View attachment 45336

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I was there last year...that tulip park was amazing...we also rented a car and visited a bunch of tulip farms....

the red light district is just creepy IMO...but what do i know

 

[Sbooker]

the red light district is just creepy IMO...but what do i know

An eye opener. Those poor women displaying themselves in windows to drunk blokes……
Kylie asked where the scantily clad men in windows were.

 

[Sbooker]

I'm surprised so many flowers are out this early at that latitude.

I could be wrong but I think they were predominantly ‘bulb’ flowers that can be manipulated to bloom earlier if planted earlier. They stagger the planting so the festival can run from late March to the end of May.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Didn't we have the driest January ever?

Not in the Sierra, which had 9-15 inches of snow this January vs. 0-3 inches in January 2022.

Overall Januaries in the western US and Canada comparable to this one in snow deficits were in 2003, 2015 and 2022. At the end of the season I might try to do more detailed comparison of those 4 seasons. But it is true that January is the reason most western regions are below average this year.