That wind just keeps blowing and blowing. Today was a day where I almost said enough is enough. But I powered through and ended up having a rather pleasant day. The winds over Summit started off brisk, and then increased through most of the day, gusting as high as 84mph. Combined with temperatures near freezing, the windchill up top was as low as zero degrees.
The wind coming out of the southwest meant that all lifts were sheltered enough to avoid a wind hold. (ABC was off schedule today). For much of the day, the groomers were where it was at, as anything that was not south or west facing was not loosening up much. By mid-day, temperatures on the lower mountain rose enough to keep the groomed runs soft. Higher on the mountain there’s some real slick spots developing where the snow has literally blown away.
Fortunately, that south facing terrain did loosen up, just a bit later than usual. We headed over to Sherwood about noon, and the Sherwood groomer was cream on the upper pitches, but still bone rattling on the flats returning to the lift. The bumps on Sherwood Face skied nicely, but skiing across the flats to return to the lift was jittery and required concentration.
Runs off the south faces of Scott also were starting to get soft around 1 pm, which is significantly later than usual. Ridge and Bobby’s were pleasant. Standard was not so pleasant.
We’re not done yet. You’ve heard the expression “out of the frying pan and into the fire?” Let’s revise that and say that tomorrow will be “out of the refrigerator and into the freezer.” Dress warm, and expect that any softening will be later than normal. Sunday should be much better.
Looking ahead, the next chance of snow really does not happen until next Friday. The models have been in disagreement and changing directions over the last few days.
The GFS has weakened the storm considerably over the last few runs. As of today, it would be a refresh, but not a game changer.
The Canadian model has flipped and gone bullish on the Friday storm, now somewhat matching the GFS.
We’re in the one week window, which makes the models a bit more believable. I wouldn’t book your vacation for next week just yet based on the possibility of that storm. We will keep an eye on things. In the meantime, today was day 95 of the season and people are already talking about when somebody is going to pull the plug on the season. I’m not planning on missing a day yet.