From the “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is…” department, and it just isn’t in Colorado either, Mammoth, California got an early base also.
Courtesy of Mammoth An October storm brought nearly a foot of snow to Mammoth, which opens for the season Nov. 10.
ESPN reports: This week, the first significant snowfall of the winter season hit ski areas around the country — dropping 10-plus inches of snow at higher elevations in Tahoe and Mammoth, nine inches on West Virginia’s Snowshoe Mountain, and causing winter storm warnings in the mountains in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.
I’m sure somebody will find a way to blame global warming.
Colorado ski resort opens early with 44 inches of powder
By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD
OutThereColorado.com
WOLF CREEK SKI AREA, COLO. – The ski season in Colorado officially began on Oct. 8.
It was announced not with the din of snow-making machines pasting a path of man-made snow between dirt and rocks, but the distant whoops of avalanche-control bombs.
And accompanied by heaps of powder.
On Oct. 8, 1,500 skiers and snowboarders converged on remote Wolf Creek Ski Area, four hours from Colorado Springs, Colo., for the most memorable ski season opening in recent memory.
Every year, the Interstate 70-corridor ski areas Loveland and Arapahoe Basin compete to make enough snow for an 18-inch base on one or two ski runs to open first.
But as both were firing up snow guns for the first time on Oct. 6, an autumn storm was dumping 3 feet of snow on Wolf Creek, in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado.
Photo gallery from opening day
In a coup that will long be remembered in skiing circles, Wolf Creek announced it would be the first resort in the U.S. to open, the earliest opening in resort history. They had three lifts and 600 acres of terrain open.
“Despite the fact Loveland or A-Basin are often first, we’re usually right behind them,” said vice president Rosanne Pitcher.
After another 8 inches of snow fell the night of Oct. 7, cries of joy echoed through Wolf Creek’s pines all day.
Skiers talked about the conditions in hushed tones.
“This is a very rare treat,” said Charles Vogel, who drove 6 hours from the Western Slope. “I grew up in Colorado. I’ve been skiing since I was 4 years old, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“This is one of those days that I’m going to remember for years to come,” said Drew Petersen, of Silverthorne, Colo. “It’s definitely worth the drive, and I’ve got a smile on my face that hopefully lasts for a while.”
h/t to WUWT reader “Steve”
You do know that Wolf Creek is famous for both early openings and copious amounts of pow, right?
In other news here in SW MT, we got a fair amount of mountain snow late last week (same widespread cold storm) but normally by this time of year we have had 6″ of snow here in town. So far none, just rain. Long range is for a cold and snowy winter up here, but we are still waiting for our first real cold snap…
See, GW does = more snow ……
…… or less snow (whichever happens, wherever it happens)
…… or floods, or droughts, or hurricanes, or tornadoes, or etc. etc.
/sarc
al gore nearby giving a speech?
Don’tcha know that the hypothesis of AGW is now Climate Disruption……? It’s the hotter, colder, wetter, drier, calmer, windier climate theory of everything….. and for the small, insignificant price of a whole western economy…. I can sell you a bottle of CD antidote….;-)
Drool… Here I was happy about all the snow on pike’s peak. Copper on the 4th…
Mark
Hmmm…Must be getting all the snow that the zealot (well a botanist) said would no longer be falling on Australia’s Snowy Mountains!
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/10/australian-alps-to-be-free-of-snow-by-2050/
Tioga Pass over the Sierras was also closed (temporarily) due to the first winter snow this year. That colder Pacific ocean is likely to bring some serious snow our way this year. Meanwhile, CO2 continues to increase.
Don’t worry, it’s only a ‘pause’ on our way to CO2 Doom!
Remember the scene in the movie Trading Places,
when the two Evil Old Duke Brothers
have been snookered into total ruin by our heroes,
Ralph Bellamy falls to a heart attack and
Don Ameche screams in futility
“Get those people back in here.
Turn those machines back on!”
The Warmistas are similarly in a panic at ever-earlier snowfalls,
ever-more bitter winters, and most nightmarish of all, declining sea-levels.
Their multiplier never existed,
the actual feedback is negative,
CO2 is radiantly third-order, mainly boosting plants:
so in similar futility, they scream
“Get those sea-levels back up. Turn that global warming back on!”
Ratso, that was the earliest ever for them.
rotten snow
But GW does produce unexpected GC experiences.
Acclimatized: What will happen when weather makes you forget what it was like the last 30 years.
Weather (dog) chases Climate (tail).
Rattus Norvegicus,
Montana looks to have quite a bit more snow as well as precipitation than average:
http://www.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrds/nrcs/updatesur/update-mt.html
Great, I’m booked at Aspn and Vail in Dec-Jan, using hard earned money from the Australian mining boom, so should enjoy it now before the carbon tax, the mining tax, the bureaucrat expenses tax, the academic global warming research and exotic conference tax, etc etc all kick in.
First resort to open? The upper runs at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood Or. are open all summer long! But since they don’t close I suppose that you can say they aren’t ‘opening.’
thingadonta says:
October 12, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Great, I’m booked at Aspen and Vail in Dec-Jan, using hard earned money from the Australian mining boom….
________________________________________________________
Enjoy, Hope you get three feet of virgin powder like I did when I was there. It is awesome skiing.
Similar weather happened in Switzerland with the area around St Moritz going from late Summer to Winter (Snow into the valley bottom) without the usual cold sunny Autumn.
Where are all the politicians that were on tv worrying over the ski industry closing down from global warming, Barbara Boxer?
Skiing at Wolf Creek, of course, Amino…
Mark
Not quite 3 ft yet but snow has also fallen early on the Scottish ski slopes –
http://www.ski-glenshee.co.uk/news/snow
A few years ago the Glenshee Ski Centre went into Administration (think Chapter 11) because of lack of snow. Seems the weather (or is it climate?) has changed recently. /sarc off
My sister has a condo in Tahoe… Thank you AGW!!!
We had light snow in the western Denver Metro area over the weekend, snow level was about 6000 ft altitude. Did not last long due to rain mixed in with it. Pretty typical this time of year, historical earliest snow in the Denver Metro Area is the first week of September, so this is about the normal time for snow flurries to begin to appear in the higher terrain in the Metro basin.
Not uncommon for several inch deep snow falls to begin around Halloween in the city.
Larry
Interstellar Bill says
October 12, 2011, 9:19 pm
LOL, nice post.
It’s the Ozzie carbon tax you fools. It was passed through parliament yesterday. It’s already working. Carbon taxes causing CO2 levels to crash, cooling the planet in the process. Gillard should be awarded the noble prize for lies, I mean science, or peace, or whatever.
Mr. Jones, maybe you can tell the *whole story* about the Alps???
In fact there was one day of snow breaking up two months of hot summerweather (although actually autumn should have started) August and September, September being – even with this one day snowfall – the hottest ever recorded. Glacier melt was 7% in only one year time!
http://www.vwkweb.nl/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4798&Itemid=26
Has anybody actually tested this white stuff, I mean chemically tested it to make sure it actually is what we used to call snow?