USA WEATHER – Freak Colorado Cold Helps Epic Early Season

November 25th, 2010


Bruce Ruff in Breckenridge. Image:: Carl Scofield

Coloardo Weather | Don St Pierre – Former US Freestyle Team Coach

The entire North American continent, particularly Colorado ski resorts such as Breckenridge, has been experiencing an incredible cold snap this week. This extreme cold weather, along with snowfalls above the November average will allow resorts to boast about the best skiing for this time of year in a very long time. And being able to operate their snowmaking facilities at maximum volume will only help guarantee the best opening the industry could hope for.

Everyone in the snow industry knows nothing prompts bookings like snowfalls, and why not? Such outstanding early season conditions are an excellent reason to lock in a slice of the La Nina action, whether you get in a quick pre-Christmas trip or wait for 2011, when this early snow will have packed down to a perfect base for even more pow.

For anyone seeking early snow Colorado has always been a popular spot and with an elevation of 3963m Breckenridge is one of the first resorts each year to be able to offer world-class training conditions and hosts many international racing teams every year thanks to its reliable early season snow.

I have run early season training camps both for the Australian Freestyle Team and more recently the US Freestyle Ski Team at places like Breckenridge, Winter Park, and Copper Mountain over many years enjoying cold temps and abundant artificial snow due to their elevation.


Breckenridge has amazing early season conditions right now

But this week at Breckenridge Mountainwatch.com is forecasting temperatures to plummet to -29ºC with a high for Thursday to reach a mere -18ºC. This is crazy cold for this time of year and a brutal awakening to winter even for the well seasoned World Cup competitors used to training and competing in anything that Mother Nature can throw at them.

Our in house meteorologist, The Grasshopper puts it this way, “This cold outbreak is affecting almost the entire United States, except for the southeast. Even northern Texas will get a taste on Friday.

“It is being driven by a deep trough of low pressure that’s extending down from the Arctic and covering most of Canada and the US. Over the last few days this trough has driven strong, moist westerly winds across the ranges of California and the Rockies, leading to the deep snowfalls we’ve already seen. As the trough travels from west to east across the continent it will be followed by strong cold northerly winds reaching all the way from the Arctic.

“The final piece of the puzzle will be relatively clear skies from Wednesday through to Friday that will allow temperatures to plummet overnight, getting down to negative 30 degrees celsius for elevations above 3000m. This system has already delivered most of its snow, but there’s another trough on the way that will bring more snow and cold air early next week.”

Even at my former hometown of Steamboat, which is considered the ‘banana belt of the Rockies’ because of its typically milder temperatures, will dip to a ridiculous -29ºC. For November this is really cold stuff and will allow the snowmakers an excellent opportunity to buff out the trails with superb quality man made snow, which will set up a strong base to carry through the whole season.

Playing host to FIS World Cup competitions can be a nerve racking, potentially budget breaking business if the snow and cold weather arrives too late but right now Lake Louise, Aspen and Beaver Creek have little reason to be nervous about the early season FIS World Cup stops coming to their slopes in the next few weeks. Mother Nature has delivered an early Christmas present and it couldn’t have come at a better time with most resorts concerned about visitation due to shaky economic times. When the snow is good we all somehow seem to find the money and time to get on snow.

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