World Snow Wrap Up Vol 19, 21 March – Mammoth Snow!
How’s the serenity? Vail, 18 March. Image:: Connor Walberg/courtesy Vail
Stormwatch:
The snowfall heros
CALIFORNIA knows how to snow. We can barely believe it but it seems to be true, as much as 170cm has fallen over the weekend and there’s about that much again to come… winter’s not over yet in the sunshine state people!
- Mammoth, California – with 119cm in the 24 hours to Sunday morning
- Heavenly, California – 134cm, this past week
- Austria – up to 80cm in parts
The snow forecast heros:
CALIFORNIA knows how to snow… some more. Well over a metre of new snow is expected this week, again.
- 151cm for Mammoth, California
- 144cm for Heavenly, California
- 25cm for Park City and Utah generally, plus freezing temps to keep it champagne dry
Last week’s event highlights:
- Winter X Europe, the second, went off in Tignes, France over the weekend, the results were epic, but the conditions were somewhat mixed. The riders didn’t let poor weather – the men’s snowboard slope eliminations were cancelled due to storms – deter them and really raised the bar, never before landed in competition tricks were seen from Sarah Bourke, who won the women’s ski superpipe and Justin Dorey, who earned the silver in the men’s ski superpipe. Chas Guldemond won the men’s snowboard slopestyle with the highest points ever earned by a rider in any X Games event – 99.33. Australia’s Anna Segal and Russ Henshaw both walked away with fourth place – in the women’s and men’s ski slopestyle respectively
- The Nissan Xtreme Verbier, the final event in the Freeride World Tour, took place in Verbier, Switzerland on Sunday, crowning the 2011 FWT Champions; Aurélien Ducroz (ski men), Mitch Tölderer (snowboard men), Janette Hargin (ski women) and Anne-Flore Marxer (snowboard women) made the Champions podium a European affair – they are French, Austrian, Swedish and Swiss respectively.
Event highlights this week:
- 25 – 27 March 2011 SNOWBOARD WORLD CUP – parallel GS, snowboard X and halfpipe
- 25 March – 10 April 2011 TAILGATE ALASKA, Valdez. Including the King of the Hill
If we could pick anywhere this week, we’d be: MAMMOTH, California, is that a silly question?
Snowmass, 18 March. Image:: Aspen Snowmass
Colorado
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 10.6cm at Aspen Mountain in the last 7 days
7 Day forecast: 19cm forecast in the next 7 days for Aspen Mountain
Current snow depth: 139.7cm at Aspen Mountain
Current conditions: packed powder
Another week of sun flurries for Aspen, the temperature should drop during the middle of the week, making for a couple of good powder days, winter isn’t quite ready to give up yet!
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 30.48cm in the past 7 days
7 Day forecast: about 7.2cm for the coming week
Current snow depth: 215.9cm at mid mountain
Current Conditions: powder and packed powder
Winter’s back at Steamboat, it’ll get down to minus 16 degrees Celsius some nights this week which means all the precipitation that’s on the forecast will be nice dry snow!
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: no snow in the last 48 hours
7 Day forecast: about 14.1cm forecast in the next 7 days
Current snow depth: 215.9cm at mid mountain
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
Snow flurries and six degrees on Monday, then the temperature will drop rapidly and the sun will come out in the middle of the week. It’s a shame things had to be in that order, but there should be some nice spring skiing days in there somewhere.
Turn and SMILE. Steamboat, 16 March. Image:: courtesy Steamboat
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 33.2cm in the last 7 days
7 Day forecast: 12cm
Current snow depth: 175.26cm
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
A few snow flurries and a return to more winter-like temperatures this week, with the sun breaking through on Friday for a minute or too.
And Colorado generally…
It snowed anywhere between 22cm (Beaver Creek) and 10cm (Crested Butte) in most of Colorado this weekend, reminding us all that winter is not over yet! With widespread snowfalls expected this week there;s still plenty of good skiing to be had.
Utah
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 17.8cm in the last three days
7 Day forecast: 25cm on the forecast
Current snow depth: 287.2cm
current conditions: packed powder and machine groomed
Park City’s weather will be all over the place this week, snow flurries mixed with rain to begin the week, a bit of sunshine and a bit more rain at the end then cold air and heavy snow on the weekend.
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 22.86cm in the last three days
7 Day forecast: 24cm
Current snow depth: 381cm at mid mountain
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
Sunday was snow day at Snowbird and the 30cm or so will carry them through into a week of light snow flurries with, unfortunately, perhaps a little smattering of rain.
And Utah generally…
About 15cm – 20cm across most of Utah over the weekend, with Alta, Brighton and Solitude the ones receiving the brunt of the snow storm. There will be intermittent snow through this week, with some of the resorts getting quite a good dump, it’s certainly not spring in Utah yet.
California
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 134.62cm in the last week
7 Day forecast: 144cm or so for the week
Current snow depth: 375.92cm at the summit
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
Heavenly! What can we say. It’s cold, it’s snowing, it’s snowing cold dry snow, lots and lots of it. Conditions are epic.
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 177cm in the past few days
7 Day forecast: 151cm for the week
Current snow depth: 640cm at the summit
Current conditions: powder packed powder
Winter doesn’t know when to quit at Mammoth. While the rest of the country is moving into spring, Mammoth is staying resolutely in winter with daytime tops of minus five degrees Celsius or colder and just stupid amounts of snow.
And California/Tahoe generally…
Like the overachieving child that just won’t quit, California is showing up everywhere else in the world with some ridiculous amounts of snow. It snowed 182cm in some parts of the state over the weekend and there’s more coming.
And the rest of the USA…
It’s hard to look beyond California this week, somewhere way down the list of where it’s snowed in the USA this week some other states are rating a mention, Nevada and Montana did see some flakes, so did Washington.
Lizzie Seibert in Vail, 18 March. Image:: Connor Walberg/courtesy Vail
Japan
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: about 25cm this past week
7 day forecast: 19cm
Current snow depth: 395cm at the Grand Hirafu summit
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
It’s been quite spring-like in Niseko this week, making for some harder packed snow and some rain. More of the snow for the coming week.
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: about 75cm this week
7 Day forecast: 27cm for the week
Current snow depth: 320cm at the summit
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
It’s been a wet week at Hakuba, with a mix of snow on the upper slopes and rain on the lower and some oppressive fog hanging over everything.
And Japan generally…
Japan’s snow industry is trucking along despite everything that is happening over there at the moment, the weather isn’t being too kind however, with a little too much rain around.
British Columbia
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 37cm this week
7 Day forecast: 10.6cm this week
Current snow depth: 269cm
After a solid couple of snow weeks Big White is looking at a week of intermittent snow flurries. The freezing level is sitting well below the bottom lift but the air temperature is quite high so it’ll be interesting to see what the snow condition is like.
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 38cm in the last 7 days
7 Day forecast: 19cm for the week
Current snow depth: 380cm
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
It’s still winter in Fernie, with nice snowfalls expected and cold temperatures to keep that snow dry and fluffy.
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 21cm this week
7 Day forecast: 4.5cm
Current snow depth: 216cm
Current conditions: powder packed powder and machine groomed
Some sunshine to kick off the week in Silver Star, then patchy rain and snow flurries for the rest through until the weekend.
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 35cm last week
7 Day forecast: 4.7cm for the week
Current snow depth: 171cm at the summit
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
Sun Peaks will have snow and rain, just like the rest of BC this week. The freezing levels are quite low, but the air temperature is a little too high to be confident the forecast precipitation will be all snow.
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 104cm this week
7 Day forecast: 10.9cm this week
Current snow depth: 372cm
Current conditions: powder and packed powder
It was an epic week in Whistler last week, very wintery, which means they should have plenty of snow to carry them through this week, which is still going to be cold, but without the snowfalls they have been seeing recently.
And BC Generally…
It snowed 40cm at Mt Baldy and Mt Seymour over the weekend, and about 10cm in most of the other BC resorts. It should stay cold and overcast this week so there’s still good skiing to be had!
Lake Louise 18 March. Image:: Lake Louise
Alberta
OPEN
Recent Snowfalls: 13cm in the last 7 days
7 Day forecast: 14cm for the coming week
Current snow depth: 178cm
Current conditions: packed powder
Cold, cold, cold again this week for Lake Louise, considerably colder than it’s supposed to be in nearby British Columbia, which will make for some great buttery powder
Going Global
France
Recent snowfalls: There was widespread snow across the French Alps this past week, with up to 40cm falling in places on Friday and Saturday.
Forecast snowfalls: After a brief snowstorm it’s back to sunshine for France, with only smatterings of snow expected on Monday and then again on Saturday.
Current conditions: packed powder
Top pick: Anywhere will be as good as anywhere else this week
Chamonix 18 March. Image:: The Daily Dump
Switzerland
Recent snowfalls: 40cm at Davos on Friday, 25cm at Saas Fee on Thursday. It has been a good week for the Swiss Alps.
Forecast snowfalls: about 10cm for Zermatt over the coming weekend, similar stories most everywhere, nothing huge on the horizon, snow wise.
Snow conditions: Powder!
Top pick: Davos
Austria
Recent snowfalls: Up to 80cm in parts of Austria last week!
Forecast snowfalls: Friday looks like a day of snow in both the Alberg and the Tyrol, other than that though, just sunshine on the forecast.
Snow conditions: some fresh to be found still
Top pick: Zugspitzplatt Ehrwald – it received 80cm!
Italy
Recent snowfalls: Good snow for Italy again this week, about 20cm – 40cm over the weekend in many resorts
Forecast snowfalls: A bit of snow on Monday and then perhaps some again on Friday, nothing to be packing your ski bag for though
Snow conditions: powder in places and packed powder
Top pick: Anywhere in the Dolomites
