I’ve been knocking on so much wood the past few days that my knuckles are raw. The weather forecast looks extremely promising for snow starting this weekend. If all the forecast wishes come true, we could pick up plenty of snow to open by Thanksgiving. But then again, the snow level could be too high. Crystal could get blocked. It could rain on Tuesday. The GFS model is especially keen on this probability. Doesn’t the GFS know we are trying to open a ski area here? Sheesh.
Still, my hopes are up. Tuesday is a million years away in forecast terms. Instead, I’m banking on the Sunday-night-into-Monday-morning resolution shown in the graph below. Purples and reds mean 8-12 inches. That orangish color around Paradise? That’s 16 inches for the 24 hour period.
24 Hour Snowfall Prediction for Monday Morning
Skiing by Thanksgiving just might be in the cards. I’m not an especially superstitious person. But if I thought that not changing my socks or never stepping on the threshold of the door while exiting the house or even washing my hands five times before doing anything would make it snow, I would happily become OCD just for the cause. I just haven’t found a reliable ritual yet. This is the Pacific Northwest after all. The weather is a crapshoot. Temperatures fluctuate like the nozzle of an unattended firehouse.
But when it is good, it is very very good. If we get the goods this weekend with no gully washers in sight, my prediction is we’ll be skiing soon (and by soon, I mean next week. And by next week, I mean Wednesday or Thursday). Hope to see you all on the slopes. Fingers crossed.
Kim, I was just curious where you get this model from as I would like to see if it has Whistler included in it. Thanks for posting. We have a limited opening scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Ken,
I look at the UW models. Here’s a link to the image on this post. It shows a little of BC, so maybe this will help. It is the GFS model that is optimized for the region. Looks like these storms will hit from BC to California, so most likely Whistler will get some snow out of this. Fingers crossed we all get open soon and ski season is officially under way.
Have you been faithfully doing your snow dance? I think the upper areas will get enough snow to open, but the base area may be too warm when the bulk of the precp. falls in these systems. Do you folks use snowmaking machines on the lower runs to get an early tough base? Ski Bowl(el. 3900′ ) on Mt. Hood started doing that last year and it made a big differance in them opening early and staying open. I noticed Whistler/Blackcomb said they have pumped 70,000,000 gallons of water thru their machines so far this year to get them up and running.
Sam,
We have very limited snow making capabilities. Our base area is higher than the rest, and we do have the gondola, which we can use to transport up and down. Unfortunately snow making may be the wave of the future, even here.
Did you look at Cliff Mass’s weather blog for Saturday?? He’s predicting you folks will open but look at the unbelieveable precip. totals for the Cascades in the next 192 hrs.–20 to 25 inches by next Sunday!! Stock up on groceries.
I did see that. I hope he’s right.
checked the Crystal webcams this morning, looking good!
So far so good. Let’s see what happens tonight.
Your telemetry is saying the base is holding at 33 degrees for hours–what is actually coming down–wet snow or icy rain?
Sam,
Whew. Since your message, it’s gone from snow, to mixed snow to “chunky rain” to just rain. Still, it looks like it’s snow up high. Fingers crossed it stays that way.
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