New snow at Sunshine Village this morning. Hopefully a sign of things to come! http://skibanff.com/skicam/mobotix/curr ... 8496695236
New snow at Sunshine Village
- Thread starter Snowball
- Start date
Is Sunshine's location outside of the El Nino damage zone?
I had a great two days there and would love to go back.
I had a great two days there and would love to go back.
This is the same low water content fluff Colorado gets. If it happens on October 1 its relevance to the upcoming ski season is about 0.00001%.
It so happens that Sunshine is one of the examples I used in illustrating areas favored by La Nina here: http://webpages.charter.net/tcrocker818/La_Nina.htm.
In the past decade we've had 3 mild/moderate El Ninos (most likely scenario for 2009-10). 2002-03 was just slightly below average at Sunshine but with a very slow start. 2004-05 was a disaster for most of western Canada but at least Sunshine in its cold climate didn't get deluged by the January rain. 2006-07 was an excellent year at Sunshine including unusually early openings of its extreme terrain. 2006-07 ranks #13 in El Nino strength of the last 43 seasons. Sunshine has no above average seasons in the 12 stronger years.
The bottom line: Sunshine will likely be good enough during its March/April prime in ~75% of the El Nino years. But I would defer booking until adequate snow is on the ground.
It so happens that Sunshine is one of the examples I used in illustrating areas favored by La Nina here: http://webpages.charter.net/tcrocker818/La_Nina.htm.
In the past decade we've had 3 mild/moderate El Ninos (most likely scenario for 2009-10). 2002-03 was just slightly below average at Sunshine but with a very slow start. 2004-05 was a disaster for most of western Canada but at least Sunshine in its cold climate didn't get deluged by the January rain. 2006-07 was an excellent year at Sunshine including unusually early openings of its extreme terrain. 2006-07 ranks #13 in El Nino strength of the last 43 seasons. Sunshine has no above average seasons in the 12 stronger years.
The bottom line: Sunshine will likely be good enough during its March/April prime in ~75% of the El Nino years. But I would defer booking until adequate snow is on the ground.