El Nino’s Grand Entrance Delivers Superb Early Season Snow – World Snow Wrap

December 4th, 2015


Early morning gold in Revelstoke. Image:: Revelstoke

Mountainwatch | World Snow Wrap

Black Friday cyber-sales, American Thanksgiving, 35º plus weather in south-east Australia; Yep, all signs point to the beginning of the 2015/2016 winter season. This year, talk of El Nino has dominated the conversation, with all sorts of pre-winter predictions speaking a combination of doom, gloom and celebration – depending on where your resort of choice happens to be situated. Naturally, we joined the conversation, head over HERE to read about El Nino’s expected impacts in North America, or HERE for the likely impact on Japan’s ski season.

While we wait to see what this beast of an El Nino is actually going to bring, let’s round up the season’s start so far.

TOP 5 FORECAST TOTALS THIS WEEK (7-DAYS)
1. Whistler, Canada – 294cm
2. Big White, Canada – 55cm
3. Niseko, Japan – 46cm
4. Fernie, Canada – 42cm
5. Sun Peaks, Canada – 35cm
*As at 04/12/15


A Whistler local gets a taste of what’s to come on Blackcomb mountain this morning. There is a serious amount of snow on the way! Image:: Whistler Blackcomb

Canada

The majority of Western Canada has been enjoying a stellar start to winter. That’s expected to be punctuated by some ridiculous snowfall totals as a series of storms moves through British Columbia and Alberta. Read about it here. Whistler Blackcomb are expecting over two metres of snow in the next 7-days. Further west, Revelstoke and Sun Peaks have received nearly 300cm of new snow already! They are sitting on 113cm and 78cm base respectively. Over on the East Coast Winter has been a little late to the party and resorts rely on snowmaking for now.

Read more: West-Pacific Storm Bears Down On Whistler, Up To 200cm Expected


Fresh turns in the Vail backbowls this morning. Image:: Vail

USA

California and Colorado seem to have been the biggest winners thanks to El Nino this year. They’ve been experiencing a near record-breaking start to their ski season. This has been a welcome relief after a long drought in California. So far Mammoth is set-up with a 120cm base with more snow on the way this week. Up in Colorado, Breckenridge, Vail and Beaver Creek recently scored a 15-20cm powder day over the weekend and are expecting more snow this weekend. Their base is sitting around the 80cm mark already this year. Further North, Jackson Hole and Mt Baker have been scoring some snow and are sitting on a 60-70cm and 140cm base respectively. Mt Baker is expected to do well out of the storms on their way to the PNW this week.


Groomed early season corduroy in Val Thorens, France today. Image:: Val Thorens

Europe

As is the norm at this time of year there is great skiing at resorts that benefit from high altitudes. A number of resorts in Austria commenced operations over the weekend on a limited base of 30-40cm. Resorts at higher altitudes like Kitzbuhel and Hintertux are sporting solid early season bases of around 80-100cm. Resorts in France are bathed in sunny skies for the next few days, although the skiing is superb thanks to the big snowfalls at the end of last week. Most resorts are currently sitting on a base of between 80-120cm. Conditions are expected to remain cool and dry for the next week or so and snowmaking will be the priority for resorts that are able.

Summary

Overall conditions are as expected at this early stage of the season, with the exception of the Western side of North America who have been enjoying a superb start to their season.

Where We Would Like To Be This Week

Whistler Blackcomb – no question!

 

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