On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:00:02 -0500, Wesley A. Wright <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >952 AM EST WED NOV 30 2011 >STATION PRECIP TEMPERATURE PRESENT SNOW > 24 HRS MAX MIN CUR WEATHER NEW TOTAL SWE >JAY PEAK 0.28 59 50 50 CLOUDY 0.0 0 Wow has it been warm... this is absolutely incredible to have widespread temperatures getting no lower than 50F in the mountains at the end of November. I was excited to be working the first two weeks of the season straight, skiing everyday, and getting into the flow of another 7-days-a-week-ski-schedule, but this has been more interesting than expected. I was really hoping for a good start to the season and things looked promising last Wednesday... but the weather has gone downhill since then. Here are my last 5 mornings worth of 6am temperatures at Stowe mountain operations center at 1,550ft: 44F 39F 55F 47F 53F today We have not touched freezing (or been anywhere close to it for that matter) in over 120 hours and getting close to 132 hours. Luckily as of 2pm the temperature at the Nose on Mansfield is 33F so hopefully the big melt will be over soon. The problem is that 33F is running warmer than progged as models had us down to 28-30F up there at noon. If this next stretch of weather is a few degrees warmer than expected most ski resorts are going to have a big problem. Speaking of problems, Stowe's snow is just about gone but we are piecing it together however possible. I cannot imagine where other ski areas stand that had less snow to begin...but its Killington, Stowe, and Okemo still standing right now (but Okemo requires a bus ride to a lift that you upload/download to get to the skiing). And given the weather pattern in the near future, terrain availability is basically going to come down to snowmaking capacity as natural snow is going to be very hard to come by. Christmas is going to be rough for the VT ski industry this year the way the long range pattern is setting up. Its so bleak that yesterday I was out shoveling snow onto Lord with about 8 other employees (ski patrol supervisors, risk managment, operations coordinators, etc). We were shoveling Mad River Glen style to keep a skiable path down Lord below Sunrise...and then also shoveled an area of North Slope below the sunspot. This morning when I came in I knew we had problems as soon as I saw the base around the Quad. No snow. Nothing. When I called the Mansfield groomers on the radio at 5am they honestly didn't think we could open today. We told them to take their time and do whatever they can to put it together. They were winching snow from hundreds of yards away from some spots to get at least one cat-width wide swath of white through the bare areas. Well after a heroic effort by Donny and Ed we opened at 9:30am... and guess what? It was actually real fun skiing. The snow was buttery soft and I enjoy those springtime-like days of playing connect the white dots on skis. The only problem is tomorrow will be December 1st, not May 1st. Tomorrow looks to be another problem waiting to happen as now we really have no "stashes" of snow left and what is there is so thin that putting a groomer on it is barely possible... but it'll freeze solid tonight so we have to groom to avoid the moonscape conditions. No one can say we don't try, haha. I think most skivittlers would be impressed that this place opened with what we had today...pretty much a top-to-bottom stripe of snow like 10-20 feet wide. Never surrender has been the motto lately, haha. Here's to hoping for something good in the weather department happens and it gets colder than progged for the next 72 hours. Lastly, for anyone thinking about skinning for a dawn patrol (I have gotten some inquiries about this), I would recommend staying away as the groomers are winching on that route between 3-8am. If you still choose to skin (there were some folks early this morning), there'll be two snowcats on the hill and the top one will be the anchor cat, with the winch cat below... so definitely keep your eye out as hitting or getting hit by a winch cable would ruin your day. -Scott - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - SkiVt-L is brought to you by the University of Vermont. To unsubscribe, visit http://list.uvm.edu/archives/skivt-l.html