It Has Begun

At 2:15 am on the morning of Nov 18th, we officially started making snow for the season. Seems like an early start? Not really, but not a bad time to get started. Historically, we average about 26 hours of snowmaking in November. Nov of 2000 started on Nov 14th and we logged 114 hours of snomaking. Nov of '01 and '06 marked the only Novembers that we saw no snomaking opportunities. So for the first night of this season we will have about 6 hours under our belt.

What will the rest of winter bring?............nobody really seems to know. Let's look at some of the forecasts that are out there. Let's start with the National Weather Service. In my mind, they never really make much of a forecast. Publishing a forecast in terms of probabilities is not really a forecast. If no set of conditions could make a forecast wrong, then it is not much of a forecast.
Let's look at what they are saying at the moment. The winter outlook says we have a 40% chance of above normal temps, a 33% chance of normal temps, and a 27% chance of below normal temps. That is how I came to the conclusion that they really do not know what this winter will bring.

Old Farmer's Almanac says we will see a colder and drier winter than is the norm. Specifically they predict a Cold December, a Warm January, and a near normal February in terms of temps. Snowiest periods are to be in early Dec, early Jan, and early February. It is always nice to the source of a forecast's rationale, but you ain't gonna get much from them as they derive their forecast from a secret formula!.............mmmmm......I see!

New Farmer's Almanac calls for a "numbing" winter with below average temps and above average snowfall. We are to expect a frigid, wild, snowy winter. Not sure what they base their prediction on...........perhaps someone out there can enlighten me.

So, there ya go. 3 drastically different takes on what this winter will bring. From what I understand(and that is little).........The current state of ENSO(El Nino/Southern Oscillation) is neutral. This neutral state is know as a "La Nada" as it has been recently named in jest. ENSO neutral years are characterized by much higher uncertainty. A weak signal from the Equatorial Pacific often means that the other signals such as the Pacific-North American Oscillation(PNA), the Arctic Oscillation(AO), and the North Atlantic Oscillation(NAO) have a greater influence on the weather. Problem is.........these signals are almost impossible to forecast long-range events.

So stay tuned and let's seen who knows what as this winter unfolds............

Mother Nature Giveth and Taketh

Mother Nature always seems to remind us of who is control ultimately. Generally speaking, in the winter of '07-'08 she allowed all of us that enjoy winter sports to feel pretty darn good.

Perhaps Mom detected us feeling a little cocky about all the fun we had last winter and decided it was time to put us in our place. In early June we were deluged with over 5 inches of rain in a 2 hour period. July brought the entire QC area a hammering from what is termed a "Derecho". A derecho by definition is a long lived straight-line windstorm associated with band of rapidly moving thunderstorms. The word was coined by Dr. Gustavus Hinrichs, a physics professor at the U of Iowa, in a paper published in the American Meteorological Journal back in 1888. By definition winds in a derecho must meet the National Weather Service criterion for severe wind gusts (greater than 57 mph) at most points along the derecho path. I doubt that anyone in the QC would question that criteria as we experienced sustained winds in excess of 95 mph. September had to get in on the act also as we received almost 10 inches of rain over a 3 day period.

Bottom line for us at the ski area was extensive damage to our snowmaking pond, dike, and dam that served as our source of snowmaking water in the winter. Nothing that a $40,000 project couldn't repair. Unfortunately, we were lucky compared to some of the anguish that other residents had to deal with in the aftermath of the derecho.

What does this winter have in store????????? Stay tuned. I have been looking at a bunch of long range forecasts and I will share my thoughts in a few days................