Amazing Season Beginning – Northern Hemisphere is Snowed Up

December 14th, 2010


Gabe Taylor in Mammoth, where 177cm of snow is forecast for the week. Image:: Mammoth

The world’s snow resorts are variously thanking Mother Nature, Ullr, La Nina, the Abominable Snowman and God himself for the lashings of snow that have made the first month of the 2010/2011 season one of the snowiest in memory.

Of those, La Nina is the only one with a scientific claim to the credit; the moisture-bringing weather pattern is sitting in the eastern Pacific Ocean right now, shooting precipitation over the Northern Hemisphere via the Pacific jet stream, and that precipitation is falling as snow on the North American and European continents:

  • Steamboat revelled in the snowiest November on record with a 228cm total for the month and 322cm (that’s 10.5 feet) for the season so far.
  • Mammoth has already received 284cm of snow, making for a 240cm snowbase, in November 223cm fell on the resort, more than three times the monthly average – which sits at 66.5cm
  • Snowbird and Alta resorts in Utah received well over 2m of snow between the 13 November opening day and 1 December.
  • Jackson Hole Wyoming began the season with an unprecedented 100% of terrain open from the very first day.
  • Whistler has called this the snowiest November in 25 years, the resort has barely seen a patch of blue sky since October and already has a 118cm base.
  • At the beginning of December Britain experienced the earliest heavy snowfall in 17 years, blizzards disrupted transport, closed schools and airports and caused havoc across most major cities.
  • Several Italian resorts are already reporting a snowdepth of over 3m, Ghiacciaio Presena – Adamello in the Trentino region has an upper slopes base of 4.2m


Freshies at Snowbird 7 December. Image:: Snowbird

One should always be wary of counting their chickens; Mother Nature never signed a contract agreeing to keep a season going as it is begun, neither for that matter did Ullr or the Abominable Snowman, but La Nina just may have, meteorologists are quietly confident the entrenched La Nina event will continue to deliver precipitation throughout the season.

More about what Mountainwatch.com’s meteorologist believes La Nina may deliver to Canada, The Western United States and Japan this season.


Harry Blackburn in Mammoth early December. Image:: Mammoth

The December forecast is suggesting more and more snow, the pre-Christmas weekend should deliver another bucket load on Northern Colorado and California. Mammoth Mountain is expecting 177cm before Wednesday 22 December, Heavenly Mountain 166cm. British Columbia is also looking at yet another week of constant snowflakes and Japan, where winter has been slow to start, is now on the snow-map with Niseko expecting 1m in the coming days. Even the warmer temperatures that hit some of the North American resorts in the last week were seen as a blessing as the melt-freeze cycle will form an excellent base for new powder to settle on.

And when Jackson Hole claims 100% terrain open on opening day, Mammoth posts face shot photos on facebook daily, almost every resort on the West Coast announces, with great fanfare, early season opening dates and every second day delivers news of a one foot snow storm somewhere, skiers and snowboarders the world over will find their feet itching for some of that seemingly endless pow.


Chris Benchetler in Mammoth. Image:: Mammoth