killington news ???????

[Admin]

The folks who have talked about Sugarbush using an access lift forget what happened last season:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/index. ... e&sid=2124

Win Smith said at the time that the move to Spring Fling and Stein's for final operations would take place each year from this point forward.

 

[Patrick]

The folks who have talked about Sugarbush using an access lift forget what happened last season:

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/index. ... e&sid=2124

Win Smith said at the time that the move to Spring Fling and Stein's for final operations would take place each year from this point forward.

Thanks Marc. I didn't forget, but joe isn't buying it. :wink:

i don;t buy that sugarbush is going to .. if that snow had not come late last year, i don;t think they would have made enough snow to have pushed a late spring season...

Again, like I'll repeat what I mentioned above and elsewhere. Temps are getting warmer, so regardless of the ressources and commitment, you aren't going to see an area extending the season from October to June the way that Kmart was going it, because Mother Nature has a fever. :roll:

 

[Geoff]

Again, like I'll repeat what I mentioned above and elsewhere. Temps are getting warmer, so regardless of the ressources and commitment, you aren't going to see an area extending the season from October to June the way that Kmart was going it, because Mother Nature has a fever. :roll:

Voodoo meteorology at work. Global warming is a long-term trend. It's plenty cold enough in March to make a pile of snow and run lifts until June 1 on a north-facing slope at 3000-4000 feet in northern New England. There is also almost always a window in late-October, early-November to blow marketing snow at 3000-4000 feet to offer some limited skiing.

To un-hijack this thread....

Some Killington news:

One of the changes at Killington is pulling all the programs away from the Killington Ski Club. The Hopefuls program (ages 6-12) moves over to the ski school. I know lots of people who taught in that program over the years. One can imagine soaring prices. The structured junior programs (alpine racing, freestyle, and snowboarding) for older kids are being taken over by the Killington Mountain School.

So far, Killington has been unable to hire a competent food & beverage manager. The guy who has been managing the Killington base lodge for many years has the position at the moment but is singularly unqualified for the position. As I hear it, they're having difficulty hiring the other skilled positions. Job postings for electricians to work on the lifts are getting zero responses. A lot of their full time ski patrol have moved on to other mountains. The big layoff they had over the summer to trim 1/3 of the positions that had employee benefits hasn't done anything for labor relations.

 

[Patrick]

Voodoo meteorology at work. Global warming is a long-term trend. It's plenty cold enough in March to make a pile of snow and run lifts until June 1 on a north-facing slope at 3000-4000 feet in northern New England. There is also almost always a window in late-October, early-November to blow marketing snow at 3000-4000 feet to offer some limited skiing.

Well you know I had a mandatory Voodoo climatology course when I was in University when Killington used to close in June on Downdraft. :roll: A good friend eventually went on to get a Master degree in the science. No tea leaf science here folks.

Regardless of Global warming is happening or not and if human have an impact or not, look at temps details over the last few season versus 10-20 years ago. Yes, you can probably have a snowmaking window in October and yes you can blow snow in March, but that doesn't mean you'll open (only for a few days) in early October, have over 230+ ski days season, close in June and offer the same "product" for the same amount of days now than in the 80s-90s.

To un-hijack this thread....

Some Killington news.

Thanks for that news Geoff. Killington definitely has a long hard slope to climb.

 

[J.Spin]

There is one problem here, regardless of the nostalgic days of K. It's been getting warmer every season. There is no way that K (with the energy and ressource of the 90s) would have been able to offer the same season in the last few years and in the good old day. They are calling for 27c weather in Ottawa tomorrow, that is 12c above normal. Temps have been between 20-30 in September. It's the same story every year and it's not getting better for snow and winter lovers.

Edit - Patrick has already addressed some of the quoted comments through the message above this one, but below are some of my thoughts that I wrote before I saw his clarification.

I disagree with some of what Patrick has written here. I still think that Killington could have offered their more traditional 80s & 90s-style long season in the past few years if they were financially willing/able to do so. It’s possible that weather could have had some impact on how each of the seasons played out (just as it did through the 80s & 90s) but there were certainly windows of cold temperatures where they could have stockpiled snow if they wanted to.

Much like the weather, I also don’t think that climate change could have had a significant impact on the issue either. Thus far, the most likely way that climate change could have affected Killington's ability to blow snow over the past decade is in their perception, not in a physical reality. According to the instrumental temperature record (available through Wikipedia), the global average air temperature near the Earth's surface has risen 1.33 °F during the last 100 years, or an average of 0.013 °F per year. But, being as specific and rigorous as possible, if the focus is on the data from 1980 to the present, it looks like the temperature has risen approximately 0.9 °F, or 0.034 °F per year. The average January and February low temperatures for Killington are WELL (more than 15 °F) below freezing, so it’s hard to imagine that a 0.9 °F increase could be the straw to break the back of their ability to stockpile snow if they wanted to.

This is a bit off the topic of Killington, but sometimes while skiing on a warm day I’ll hear comments about how much warmer the weather is compared to what it used to be, and climate change is often mentioned. I have a hard time understanding this and can only contribute it to human perception. Are there really people out there that can store an accurate sensation of temperature and recall it 20-30 years later with reference to less than a 1 °F difference? Using the available averages, a day that is 22 °F above average this year would have been 21.1 °F above average 20-30 years ago, and it’s very hard to believe that anyone is really able to detect that difference, especially over that time span.

J.Spin

 

[jasoncapecod]

jspin,
i couldn't agree more.....

 

[Harvey]

I'm not saying I really understand the science, but I THINK that when the avg temp for a month is 3 degrees higher it can mean that HIGH temps were as much as 10 degrees above average. It could cut down on the number of days snowmaking was possible. Averages are move much more gradually than extremes.

When I see my electric bill and it tells me average temps for a month..this past August the avg temp was 76. We only had 5 days above 90. Two years ago the avg Aug temp was 79 and we had 14 DAYS ABOVE 100.

Counterpoint... I think that Killington could figure out a way to ski 12 months of the year if they really wanted to. They got the juice to do it if they want to.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Many thanks to JSpin for injecting some scientific reality into the climate discussion. The typical New England ski area in its natural state has NEVER been able to hold snow routinely in May. Ergo, stockpile snowmaking. And the definition of stockpile snowmaking is that's what you do through March. If average temperatures are up 0.9F since 1980, the average last date you can blow snow at least half the time might have backed up from March 30 to March 25 (I have no idea if those are the right dates, but the I strongly suspect the 5 day difference is in the ballpark). I think you can safely extrapolate that the average date the stockpile runs out would also be 5 days earlier (average May 10 temps now = May 15 temps in 1980).

Speaking of 1980, I'll remind you Easterners that 1979-80 still has the honor as the worst ever ski season in New England. Like 1976-77 in the West.

I will concede that it takes energy to blow snow, and if energy prices have doubled ski areas will be less likely to do it for marketing cachet, or they will insist upon a bigger bump in shoulder season ticket sales than they did 20 years ago.

Heating/cooling bills are very leveraged, particularly in a climate like SoCal. In a mild winter or summer here they can be almost nothing. So a hot summer or cold winter month can be a significant multiple of a prior year.

 

[Patrick]

J.Spin understood my points. Season the past few years have been different than the 80-90, I suspect that someone that would have the data could analyst the number of days of snowmaking temps. Also, you can make snow in March, but if temps in April and May (because I'm talking about mid-October to mid-June K season of the 90s here) are 10-20F above normal, your snow is going to melt much faster.

Speaking of 1980, I'll remind you Easterners that 1979-80 still has the honor as the worst ever ski season in New England.

You talked about this last year, I remember 1980, it was a bad year indeed and it didn't help that many ski areas had little or no snowmaking at all. (a number of smaller ski area went under partly because of that year). 1952 or 1953 is another bad year.

However if you look at temps (below freezing), not snow accumulation, 1980 might not be the worst.

 

[Patrick]

Okay, Tony so I'll compare the worst season (Sutton is in the Eastern Townships and only a few miles north of Jay) with last season where it was amazing once it got started with continual freeze and snowstorm after snowstorm. But last year would hardly be a year like the long season at K (with little interruption of operations from October to June).

I'm doing this without knowing the outcome. Environment Canada data from the Sutton weather station at 244meters (definitely not on the mountain). I know this is very unscientific, but it can show that snow accumulation doesn't give you the entire picture in these day of snowmaking.

Again, I don't know what the number will say, I just know that last season was bad temps wise (not only snow) - although it was an amazing year once it got started.

1979-80 versus 2006-07

So I'll compare for each month (September* to June) Helps when the ground is frozen:

Maximum Average (Celsius)
Minimum Average
Average Temperature
Highest Maximum
Lowest Minimum
Days with Minimum below freezing
Snow accumulation (cm)
Heating Degree Days (see definition below*)(Environment Canada uses this - might be useful?)

I've put in bold the warmer or least snow between 1979-80 and 2006-07 for each month.


year/Month/max avg/min avg/avg temp/ext hi/ext low/freeze days/snow(cm)/Hd/
79/Sept/19.3/7.8/13.6/27.2/-2.2/2/0.0/141.6
06/Sept/19.2/9.4/14.3/26.5/2.0/0/0.0/114.9

note: no freezing in 2006

1979: 3
2006: 4 indicators warmer than 1979

79/Oct/11.4/3.9/7.7/27.2/-6.1/11/18.0/329.9
06/Oct/11.6/2.6/7.1/21.0/-4.0/6/32.1/336.9

note: 6 days where min temps reached below freezing in 06 vs 11 days in 79. But it did snow.

1979: 5
2006: 3

79/Nov/8.1/0.0/4.1/19.4/-10.0/14/13.9/417.9
06/Nov/9.1/1.6/5.4/20.0/-5.5/10/0.8/378.6

note: 5 potential snowmaking days less and warmer across the board in 2006.

1979: 0
2006: 8

79/Dec/0.2/-8.6/-4.2/12.8/-27.8/25/36.7/687.8
06/Dec/2.2/-5.0/-1.4/11.0/-17.0/22/44.9/601.3

note: average temps close to 3c warmer in 06. Real cold low in 1979.

1979: 2
2006: 6

80/Jan/-4.2/-13.3/-8.8/11.5/-24.0/30/18.9/830.6
07/Jan/-3.6/-12.9/-8.2/14.0/-27.0/29/49.8/813.7

note: Winter is starting in 2007 although a bit warmer than 1980.

1980: 2
2007: 6

80/Feb/-5.6/-14.7/-10.2/9.5/-24.0/29/28.2/817.3
07/Feb/-6.6/-16.6/-11.6/3.5/-28.5/28/94.4/829.7

note: Winter is happening now in 2007 while it's not snowing in 1980.

1980: 7
2007: 0

80/Mar/3.1/-7.4/-2.2/12.5/-29.0/26/50.6/624.6
07/Mar/2.0/-8.1/-3.1/13.5/-29.0/27/81.9/653.1

note: same as above.

1980: 6
2007: 1

80/Apr/11.3/1.2/6.3/21.0/-8.0/12/7.2/351.5
07/Apr/9.2/0.6/4.9/27.0/-7.5/11/48.2/392.4

note: extreme maximum is 27 in April 07 versus 21.

1980: 5
2007: 3

80/May/18.8/5.4/12.1/26.0/-2.0/1/0.0/185.6
07/May/18.5/6.5/12.5/30.5/0.0/0/0.0/187.3

note: warmest 30.5c versus 26. Hard to keep the snow from melting fast and make it to June.

1980: 2
2007: 5

80/Jun/21.1/9.7/15.4/30.5/0.5/0/0.0/96.8
07/Jun/23.9/12.5/18.2/31.5/4.0/0/0.0/40.7

1980: 0
2007: 6

So you can see, it's okay to talk about making the best of the season and trying to extend it the most as possible, but there are something that are different and the shoulder of the season are warmer (although I'm not going to compare every year) and you wouldn't have had a October-June season last year with the same amount of ski days regardless if K did the same thing than they did 10-15 years ago.

If 1980 was so bad (yes, it was terrible skiing wise (lack of snowmaking and natural snow), last year start was equally as bad. I can go back a few season and I'm sure you'll see approximately the same trends, temperature for shoulders of the seasons and melting away. That is more than an impression.

HD*

Heating Degree Days

Heating degree-days for a given day are the number of Celsius degrees that the mean temperature is below 18°C. If the temperature is equal to or greater than 18°C, then the number will be zero. For example, a day with a mean temperature of 15.5°C has 2.5 heating degree-days; a day with a mean temperature of 20.5°C has zero degree-days. Heating degree-days are used primarily to estimate the heating requirements of buildings.

 

[J.Spin]

I'm not saying I really understand the science, but I THINK that when the avg temp for a month is 3 degrees higher it can mean that HIGH temps were as much as 10 degrees above average. It could cut down on the number of days snowmaking was possible. Averages are move much more gradually than extremes.

That’s a great thought Harvey, I personally don’t know if that’s the way it works, but we can probably find someone (like Powderfreak) who would know more about it. I should also point out that using the global average air temperature near the surface of the earth the way I did in my calculations is probably only the roughest of guides to track climate changes for a place like Killington with respect to snowmaking/skiing. There could be factors like what you mentioned, where the average is not perfectly representative of the changes in extremes for the day. Also, the changes may be different (greater or smaller) at elevation vs. near the earth’s surface. Another thing to think about is that I used numbers that are global averages, and it is entirely conceivable that if the earth’s climate changes and generally gets a bit warmer overall, global weather patterns may change to cause localized regions to warm more quickly than the average, warm more slowly than the average, or even cool down compared to what they were in the past. I’m not sure where the Northeastern U.S. fits into that scheme, but perhaps there’s some Northeast-specific data out there to look at.

We’ll have to wait until someone with more knowledge weighs in on your thoughts about the maximum temperatures increasing to a greater degree relative to the average, but with my rudimentary math skills I still have a couple of thoughts. In order for the average temperature for a period to be only 3 degrees above the long term record, while the maximum temperature is 10 degrees above its long term trend, there would have to be a compensatory large decrease in the minimum temperature for the period for the average to still come out at only 3 degrees on the high side. It would seem possible to have a very short term spike to a very high temperature, which could be compensated by lower temperatures that are less extreme, but greater in number, and still get to the indicated average. I know that the drier the air is, the more extreme the fluctuations are in high and low temperatures, but it doesn’t seem like drier air everywhere would be associated with climate change. Another thing I’ve though about is that if the maximums really do increase much more than the average, than would we expect to see high temperature records being set more frequently (and maybe we are)? Good discussion, I’ll have to try to get Powderfreak in here.

J.Spin

 

[Patrick]

Back to the topic...

Here is a nice post on TGR. Title of the discussion, KILLINGTON - THE APOCALYPSE. :lol:

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/show ... hp?t=96958

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up about how great things are going at Killington these days under the astute guidance of POWDR (owners of Park City Utah) and SP Land (owned by E2M Partners of Texas). We are extremely lucky to have such a seasoned and well respected resort operator at the helm of Killington. The new President, Chris Nyburg, brings his vast experience as a manager at Mt. Bachelor to the table, and great things are sure to happen.

i'm trying to wrap my brain around this and it's just blowing my mind..

i know i'm forgetting a bunch of stuff - please add to this list what I forgot..

Since April 2007, Killington's new owners and management have:
ended may / late season skiing (this caused me to leave)
ended pre-thanksgiving / early season skiing
closed pico midweek (Tues-Wed)
closed a bunch of lodges midweek
closed lower skyship midweek (Mon-Thur)
increased pass prices by 60%
removed season pass program for children's programs
increased day-pass prices for children's programs
killed lifetime season passes
i also see it as a negative that they haven't corrected any of ASC's bad policies, either.

You can add to that:

Layed off many full time workers, including ski patrol
Zero tolerance policy on the skiers responsibility code (ski fast, lose pass, permanently)
Shortening the ski season from 200+ days to 150
No Connecticut ski council ticket deals
Appalling dishonesty about their marketing and information releasing
Same snowmaking budget as last year, maybe
No viable discount ticket card program
25 foreign workers (down from 100), less full time and part time staff, less staff overall by a large amount
4 extra blackout days
Pico ticket prices not released yet
Hard opening and closing dates of November 17th and April 13th.

Needless to say, the faithful Killington customer is overjoyed at these changes, having been freed from the yoke of ASC and their horribly underpriced products with a good operations and a solid value. This is the premium product Killington customers have been yearning for, we are all looking forward to the new premium experience on the mountain this year....whatever that may be. SP Land is on track to have major success with their new base village!!!!

All the regular posters at http://www.killingtonzone.com are quite enthusiastic about all these changes, just check out these threads:

http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18881
http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18877
http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18879
http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18870
http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18785
http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18753
http://www.killingtonzone.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18619

I love my place, and love to ski Killington. I think the dishonesty (and I don't use that word lightly) with which they've marketed their plans is appalling, and don't understand how they can expect to recover. I have always told my children the most valuable thing they own is their good name. Credibility cannot be bought, and in any tough competitive market, should not be frivolously squandered for short term gain. And that is exactly what these fools have done. Let me be clear: I do not think they have lied (but I'm sure many will disagree). However they have withheld information and allowed their customers to assume facts about how they would operate that they obviously knew to be false. Sorry, that is dishonest.

They are also looking for new marketing slogans......

Originally Posted by Dr. NO
Quote:
Originally Posted by KV
Killington, The Incredible Shrinking Mountain!

Killington, The Incredible Shrinking Season

Skiing from November to April, MAYBE!

Greatest Verticle in New England (If we run the lifts)

6 Mountains and Lodges (weekends only)

Killington, The Beast of the East (died and was served cold)

Ski Killington! It is Worth More (even though we actually give you LESS)

Whoever thought we would get LESS than what Les gave us?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mister Moose
Pissing Off Wrong Demographic Regularly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by laseranimal
my favorites so far

6 Mountains and Lodges (weekends only)

Bring Back Les Otten

Killingtongue my balls

Pwdr Sucks.

You Thought ASC was Bad?

Quote:
Originally Posted by robrules
Last to open, first to close (profits permitting)

Killington - The Least of the East

We lost the new ownership lottery

Don't blame me, I voted for Boyne

Killington - Sieze the profit

Killington - Endless Neglect

Killington - Ski it if you can (afford it)

Killington - More closed lifts than you can ride in a week

Grow Killington, Kill Powdr

Quote:
Originally Posted by SPORE
Hey Pwdr: Stratton Already Exists.

I LIKE SOME OF THESE SLOGANS...I'M SURE JOE CAN THINK OF SOME MORE. :lol:

 

[salida]

Patrick, I was just going to cross post that too.

I had a pass at Kton the last three years (for being an ASC rep) and was thinking of doing it again (in addition to Stowe this year) but these changes really give me pause.

Mostly the ski fast we'll take your pass one (and the crap Pico rules). Also, I'm pretty pissed about the skyeship being shut down midweek.

AND the obvious reduction in operating days. I'd really like to sit down with Chris Nyberg and see whats going on.

 

[Tony Crocker]

The key stat for stockpile snowmaking is number of days with minimum below freezing. For Oct-Apr that's 135 in 1979-80 and 123 in 2006-07. For sum of Patrick's indicators Oct-Apr it's 27 each. Based purely on climate data this supports my position that the reduction in stockpile snowmaking potential is modest. I suspect that improvement in snowmaking technology might more than offset though. The main issue remains cost IMHO.

In order for the average temperature for a period to be only 3 degrees above the long term record, while the maximum temperature is 10 degrees above its long term trend, there would have to be a compensatory large decrease in the minimum temperature for the period for the average to still come out at only 3 degrees on the high side.

Once again JSpin nails it. Here is SoCal we have substantial variations in humidity, from fairly humid near the coast much of the time to single-digit humidity when the Santa Ana winds blow from the desert. And with low humidity the daily high and low temperatures can spread out substantially. But in the Northeast it's humid all the time by western standards. There is no way that high temps are diverging differently than average temps in that type of climate. Patrick's example months demostrate this consistency.

Those Killington Zone threads are amazing. IMHO Powdr Corp intends to run Killington EXACTLY the way they run Mt. Bachelor. But one of the logical arguments for running Mt. Bachelor they way they do is that there will never be on-site real estate development. Thus they believe Bachelor can never be an upscale destination resort, so it needs to be run on a low cost basis. Yet Powdr wants to build an upscale village at the Killington base and this is the way they think they can get cranky Vermont local government to approve it?

 

[Harvey]

JSpin...love your indepth thought on that. Still it seems to me that if the high temp was say 10 degrees above average and the low was just average, the average average rise could be 5 degrees or less.

Ok I promise...no more speculation until we hear from an expert like Scott.

 

[joegm]

" I LIKE SOME OF THESE SLOGANS...I'M SURE JOE CAN THINK OF SOME MORE. "

to be honest, i can't.. because i am speechless...i can't believe what i just read in that post about the skyship being shut down mid week...i should'nt be speechless cause crocker called this ....i don't know if he expected the carnage to this extent, but he did call the overall assault...i cannot believe what i just read :shock:

 

[joegm]

IF, the above posted things are true, anyone who lives more than an hour away from killington and within 1 hour of any of the other major league hills in central vermont like bush, or mad river or stowe and still buys a season pass to killington, is a complete idiot

 

[Tony Crocker]

Well, I did call it but I'm surprised anyway. If it had been one isolated incident, like cancelling the lifetime passes, there might not be such a stink. But the laundry list summarized on TGR: how could it fail to provoke a reaction?

IIRC from what my friend Kirk in Bend said, the moves at Bachelor were swift also. The ones he cited were extensive layoffs and the selling off of over half of Bachelor's grooming machines, as well as the late season cutback.

What I did call correctly, thanks to listening to you Easterners on FTO for many years, is that the negative reaction/publicity Powdr Corp would get at Killington would be far worse than at Mt. Bachelor.

What I don't get is how someone in business, presumably to make money, does not try to analyze their markets and plan an appropriate strategy for each one. Powdr obviously understands that Park City and Mt. Bachelor are very different markets. While I don't like what they have done at Bachelor, I do understand the logic from a business perspective and am not in a position to say that it hasn't worked for them.

But I think I understand the New England market fairly well from what I read here, and Powdr/Killington looks like a train wreck in the making so far.

I also enjoyed the nickname Park Sh!tty East.

 

[powderfreak]

I'm not saying I really understand the science, but I THINK that when the avg temp for a month is 3 degrees higher it can mean that HIGH temps were as much as 10 degrees above average. It could cut down on the number of days snowmaking was possible. Averages are move much more gradually than extremes.

That’s a great thought Harvey, I personally don’t know if that’s the way it works, but we can probably find someone (like Powderfreak) who would know more about it. I should also point out that using the global average air temperature near the surface of the earth the way I did in my calculations is probably only the roughest of guides to track climate changes for a place like Killington with respect to snowmaking/skiing. There could be factors like what you mentioned, where the average is not perfectly representative of the changes in extremes for the day. Also, the changes may be different (greater or smaller) at elevation vs. near the earth’s surface. Another thing to think about is that I used numbers that are global averages, and it is entirely conceivable that if the earth’s climate changes and generally gets a bit warmer overall, global weather patterns may change to cause localized regions to warm more quickly than the average, warm more slowly than the average, or even cool down compared to what they were in the past. I’m not sure where the Northeastern U.S. fits into that scheme, but perhaps there’s some Northeast-specific data out there to look at.

We’ll have to wait until someone with more knowledge weighs in on your thoughts about the maximum temperatures increasing to a greater degree relative to the average, but with my rudimentary math skills I still have a couple of thoughts. In order for the average temperature for a period to be only 3 degrees above the long term record, while the maximum temperature is 10 degrees above its long term trend, there would have to be a compensatory large decrease in the minimum temperature for the period for the average to still come out at only 3 degrees on the high side. It would seem possible to have a very short term spike to a very high temperature, which could be compensated by lower temperatures that are less extreme, but greater in number, and still get to the indicated average. I know that the drier the air is, the more extreme the fluctuations are in high and low temperatures, but it doesn’t seem like drier air everywhere would be associated with climate change. Another thing I’ve though about is that if the maximums really do increase much more than the average, than would we expect to see high temperature records being set more frequently (and maybe we are)? Good discussion, I’ll have to try to get Powderfreak in here.

J.Spin

My knowledge and opinions regarding climate change leads me to these points...

1) Climate might have changed enough to have some effect on Killington's snowmaking operations but I still think there's enough seasonal variation that its negligible. They could still do late Oct through June 1 if they wanted to. If you stock pile snow, it'll stick around at 2-4K feet on a north facing slope in northern New England for 4-8 weeks longer than natural snow. The 90's featured warmer temps at times than we've been seeing so far in New England in the past seven years. Its purely a business decision.

2) Our warming that is rising global temperatures is mostly tied to overnight lows, not daytime highs. Daytime highs in some cases have held constant while its the nighttime temps that have gone up. The reasons for this is usually tied to cloud cover but on a large-scale could be tied to recording stations being in populated regions with more build-up...so radiational cooling is not as great. Seeing as warming on a global scale has a positive feedback, warmer temps means more moisture in the air which means more clouds which means even warmer temps, etc. Often times we'll see a month with a +3 departure but its because the daytime highs are 0 to +1 while the lows are +7. Precipitation events often lead to below normal highs but above normal lows.

 

[powderfreak]

Many thanks to JSpin for injecting some scientific reality into the climate discussion. The typical New England ski area in its natural state has NEVER been able to hold snow routinely in May. Ergo, stockpile snowmaking. And the definition of stockpile snowmaking is that's what you do through March. If average temperatures are up 0.9F since 1980, the average last date you can blow snow at least half the time might have backed up from March 30 to March 25 (I have no idea if those are the right dates, but the I strongly suspect the 5 day difference is in the ballpark). I think you can safely extrapolate that the average date the stockpile runs out would also be 5 days earlier (average May 10 temps now = May 15 temps in 1980).

We'll put, Tony. Dead on in my opinion. I'd argue that a .9F raise in temps might only effect snowmaking by 1-3 days. Lets consider Burlington, VT (BTV) temperatures where the average temperature for 24 hours is 32F. Also remember, that BTV at 300ft is probably up to a full month ahead of 3,000ft at Killington for the average daily temp of 32F. BTV averages 32F on March 18, 19, 20 based on records back to the late 1800s. A 1F increase in temps would therefore speed that process up by 3 days and BTV's average temps increase a degree every 2-3 days in the spring. Therefore, I'd argue that the effects of an increase in temps (even 3F which is huge when talking long term) would decreasing Killington's snowmaking time by 9 days in the spring and 9 days in the fall. For the most part though, we are talking about 2-3 days in the fall and 2-3 days in the spring.

Now that I think about it, 2-3 days in the fall might make it harder to open in October but certainly by early November 90% of the time. 2-3 days in the spring is negligible because they often stop making snow in February unless it doesn't look like we'll make it through March/early April. I know there are two snowmaking phases...get stuff open...then refresh and stockpile in early melt-out areas. Killington could make snow through April (just at night, but still like they do in late Oct and early Nov) if they wanted to.

I just can't peg them shortening the season on climate change...its 100% a business choice.