Winter Weather

Only 3″ fell overnight as a new storm moves into the Teton Mountains, but up to a foot of snow is predicted to fall by the time the storm exits for the Great Plains. As usual, accompanying stiff winds will create lots of horizontal snow movement, cause whiteouts and aggravate the already nasty avalanche situation. Overall, a pretty damn good day for an avalanche savvy skier to be in the mountains.

It must be a character flaw, but I love skiing in real snowstorms when visibility shrinks to a ski length, the wind buffets and snow starts accumulating on my shoulders as soon as I stop moving. Promising mornings like this often poop out when storm forecasters are revealed to have hyped an approaching storm again, but the only way for a skier to know, is to go. Today I’ll try out some new, fat powder skis I bought real cheap last July.

While reveling in today’s dose of winter, I can be grateful that President-elect Obama has shown, in his own words, “my administration will value science, we will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action.” In addition to selecting Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as the next Energy Secretary, the Boston Globe now reports that, “John P. Holdren, a Harvard physicist widely recognized for his leadership on energy policy and climate change, will be appointed White House science adviser this weekend.” From what I’ve read, it seems the dark days of denial and the suppression of science about the threats our modern world is creating to the future of winter and skiing will end on January 20th.

Let’s hope so. Yesterday, First Tracks Online published extracts from a science based report prepared for Aspen and Park City which projects three future scenarios based on the extent of the world’s future carbon emissions, none of which are particularly heartening for skiers,

Here’s a couple of excerpts: “Under each of the emissions scenarios, the length of the ski seasons in Aspen and Park City by 2030 ‘will be squeezed on each shoulder,’ with delayed snowpack and earlier melting seasons”  and “Under the high-emissions scenario, Park City will have no snowpack at its base by 2100 and winter precipitation will come in the form of rain.”

Skiers, let’s hope Mr. Obama and his crew take advantage of the current economic wreckage to rebuild our economy in a farsighted, enlightened, restoritive and sustainable way that will decrease the threats to the future of winter weather and skiing.

Tags: Aspen, climate change, Park City, powder, Snow, Teton Mountains, winter storms, winter weather
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