January 2024 -- Discussion

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

Nobody is skiing there except season pass holders or maybe the few unlucky families that booked that week in advance. 

Yeah, doesn’t look very busy. Certainly won’t be generating much traffic charging 123 for that 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

9 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Nobody is skiing there except season pass holders or maybe the few unlucky families that booked that week in advance. 

Yea. I don’t know what the business decision is to keep the ticket price that high though in these conditions. 

[ORH_wxman]

1 minute ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

Yea. I don’t know what the business decision is to keep the ticket price that high though in these conditions. 

Yeah if I was the GM I’d be saying come ski for 20-30 bucks and maybe you make a killing on concessions/lunch in the lodge. Try to get some volume-based profit. 
 

Anyways, we have a couple interesting patterns coming up…we get a more split-flow Nino look for the first week of January but the ensembles are giving way to a La Niña look week 2 in January with a -PNA…but you also have a -EPO and a -NAO. That pattern could be very good for us or we end up dealing with cutters. Regardless, total change from December…Canada is likely to get very cold in that pattern. 

[alex]

31 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Nobody is skiing there except season pass holders or maybe the few unlucky families that booked that week in advance. 

I’ve gotta say, I skied today and it was awesome. Spring conditions with hero snow, great for carving. I’m ready for a change but gotta take what you’re given… and at least some resorts are making the best of it. The weather definitely kept people away so for the ones that did go, you have warm weather, good spring snow and no crowds. A better deal than you often see this time of the year IMO

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

3 minutes ago, alex said:

I’ve gotta say, I skied today and it was awesome. Spring conditions with hero snow, great for carving. I’m ready for a change but gotta take what you’re given… and at least some resorts are making the best of it. The weather definitely kept people away so for the ones that did go, you have warm weather, good spring snow and no crowds. A better deal than you often see this time of the year IMO

Pay reg prices for maybe a 1/4 of the mountain open is not a good deal imo.

[Damage In Tolland]

Resorts should be offering half off for lift tickets right now . That would draw more people to slopes and also extends an olive branch to those diehards 

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

I get the warm weather and less crowds take though. That may be what some look for but most skiers I know list conditions as their top priority. 

[Lava Rock]

No signs of any pattern change for the next two weeks, 12z GFS is rinse and repeat

Always another week away

Sent from my SM-G981U1 using Tapatalk

[Torch Tiger]

The last thing any resort should try for is drawing larger crowds when conditions suck and terrain is so limited. 14 trails at attitash, you really want to pack that two miles of terrain so everyone's running into each other? Also reducing rates for bad conditons/terrain would sort of set a standard or precedent that when conditions blow, lower prices should be reflected.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

2 hours ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

 

The numbers are what the numbers are. There is a reason when we are skunked through December into Jan, the numbers aren’t good. Too much ground to make up.

You know we’re slowly sliding towards another ratter when us SNE folk are debating NNE resort business decisions. 

[Damage In Tolland]

Would you rather make no money or some money in a bad winter?

[leo2000]

5 hours ago, MJO812 said:

It looks like the pv split is not going to happen but a rather weak one which is fine  .

Who's saying that the pv is not splitting?. Bamwx still going with a split. 

[powderfreak]

17 minutes ago, Torch Tiger said:

The last thing any resort should try for is drawing larger crowds when conditions suck and terrain is so limited. 14 trails at attitash, you really want to pack that two miles of terrain so everyone's running into each other? Also reducing rates for bad conditons/terrain would sort of set a standard or precedent that when conditions blow, lower prices should be reflected.

Agreed.

We’ve actually been pretty busy.  Starting to rain now though so starting to dial it back a bit.

Past two days were busiest of the season, not much surprise.  I mean everyone pre-buys and prebooks lodging in the area that’s all non-refundable.

Beginners also don’t care, all that terrain is open anyway.  Stowe is more destination than day trip type place, so we seem less affected by weather.  They book lodging and stuff, they are going skiing.

 

[MJO812]

2 minutes ago, leo2000 said:

Who's saying that the pv is not splitting?. Bamwx still going with a split. 

Others

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 minutes ago, MJO812 said:

Others

I still think it splits....but so far, this winter spits because it blows.

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 hour ago, ORH_wxman said:

Yeah if I was the GM I’d be saying come ski for 20-30 bucks and maybe you make a killing on concessions/lunch in the lodge. Try to get some volume-based profit. 
 

Anyways, we have a couple interesting patterns coming up…we get a more split-flow Nino look for the first week of January but the ensembles are giving way to a La Niña look week 2 in January with a -PNA…but you also have a -EPO and a -NAO. That pattern could be very good for us or we end up dealing with cutters. Regardless, total change from December…Canada is likely to get very cold in that pattern. 

People don't acknowledge a change until they shovel...what is getting "pushed back" and "can kicked" is the imminent chance for significant snowfall in said poster's BY.

[Great Snow 1717]

2 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

People don't acknowledge a change until they shovel...what is getting "pushed back" and "can kicked" is the imminent chance for significant snowfall in said poster's BY.

I will acknowledge a pattern change when there is a pattern change that lasts for at least 3 weeks..  

[weatherwiz]

3 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

I will acknowledge a pattern change when there is a pattern change that lasts for at least 3 weeks..  

For at least 3 weeks? That's an awful long time. 

[Allsnow]

8 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

People don't acknowledge a change until they shovel...what is getting "pushed back" and "can kicked" is the imminent chance for significant snowfall in said poster's BY.

I think we see improvements out west when the mjo get into p3. Unfortunately, that might take until mid month. Second week of January looks like a -pna with cold dumping west 

[Great Snow 1717]

Just now, weatherwiz said:

For at least 3 weeks? That's an awful long time. 

...a pattern change that lasts for 7-10 days and then reverts back to the previous pattern isn't a real pattern change. A pattern change in my book needs to have some staying power. Three weeks at a minimum. 

[powderfreak]

2 minutes ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

...a pattern change that lasts for 7-10 days and then reverts back to the previous pattern isn't a real pattern change. A pattern change in my book needs to have some staying power. Three weeks at a minimum. 

By previous pattern you mean one that doesn’t snow.  Thats the problem.  It might be a completely different pattern but like Ray said, if it’s not snowing in your backyard, it’s just going back to the “old” (aka non-snowy) pattern.

There are two types of patterns at this point for some folks… one that snows and one that doesn’t.  Doesn’t matter how the actual atmosphere looks across northern hemisphere.

[weatherwiz]

1 minute ago, Great Snow 1717 said:

...a pattern change that lasts for 7-10 days and then reverts back to the previous pattern isn't a real pattern change. A pattern change in my book needs to have some staying power. Three weeks at a minimum. 

I'm not sure it really works like that in Northern Hemisphere winter though. With the jet stream tending to be more volatile you get more ridge/trough patterns. I think it's difficult to get a set pattern to persist that long. 

[ORH_wxman]

2 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

By previous pattern you mean one that doesn’t snow.  Thats the problem.  It might be a completely different pattern but like Ray said, if it’s not snowing in your backyard, it’s just going back to the “old” (aka non-snowy) pattern.

There are two types of patterns at this point for some folks… one that snows and one that doesn’t.  Doesn’t matter how the actual atmosphere looks across northern hemisphere.

There’s no doubt that the first half of January will be drastically different than December. 
 

December had no cold on almost the entire continent. Canada is going to get some real cold with that -EPO and that is going to dump into the CONUS too. How much our little corner of the CONUS benefits from it remains to be seen, but it will certainly be a much different longwave pattern. 

[RDRY]

Persistence > teleconnections.

[cleetussnow]

 

 

[mannynyc]

37 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

By previous pattern you mean one that doesn’t snow.  Thats the problem.  It might be a completely different pattern but like Ray said, if it’s not snowing in your backyard, it’s just going back to the “old” (aka non-snowy) pattern.

There are two types of patterns at this point for some folks… one that snows and one that doesn’t.  Doesn’t matter how the actual atmosphere looks across northern hemisphere.

It's worse than that. For some folks it's not a pattern change unless we get a massive coastal storm. 

[mreaves]

1 hour ago, RUNNAWAYICEBERG said:

I get the warm weather and less crowds take though. That may be what some look for but most skiers I know list conditions as their top priority. 

Especially when, like Alex, you live there and have the season pass.  I'm the same way with golf.  I have a membership and and if I tee off and get rained out after 6 holes, it's not a big deal to me.  If I paid $75 greens fees, it's much more of an annoyance and I probable just would have canceled my tee time if the weather looked iffy.

[mreaves]

18 minutes ago, RDRY said:

Persistence > teleconnections.

This tells me you're not here for the meteorology, only the results.  And that's fine. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not all that into the science.  Persistence isn't a method though. 

[RDRY]

7 minutes ago, mreaves said:

This tells me you're not here for the meteorology, only the results.  And that's fine. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not all that into the science.  Persistence isn't a method though. 

I understand most of the teleconnections and follow them here with the charts. It's just an observation that the long-range models mostly seem to overplay their fluctuations, and they ultimately stay within a fairly confined range for most of our winters.

[RUNNAWAYICEBERG]

25 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Especially when, like Alex, you live there and have the season pass.  I'm the same way with golf.  I have a membership and and if I tee off and get rained out after 6 holes, it's not a big deal to me.  If I paid $75 greens fees, it's much more of an annoyance and I probable just would have canceled my tee time if the weather looked iffy.

Yes. Exactly the same. For folks down here who make a ski trip to NNE once or twice a year, we’re not doing it for a 1/4 open mountain of sugar coated trails while dodging bare ground and boulders, especially at full price. 
 

Locals/season passers, a completely different view. I get that.