Heavy Snow in Western North America
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Western North America, famous for its abundant snowfalls, has ironically not had a great start to winter 2008-9.
Right along the Pacific coast from Whistler in British Columbia, Canada to Mammoth Mountain in California, USA, resorts had little snowfall before Christmas and warm temperatures meant snowmaking was limited too.
Then temperatures dropped to very cold causing structural damage and heavy snow arrived, creating avalanche problems. Then in the middle of January it warmed once again, creating ‘Spring-like’ conditions.
Now at last conditions are becoming more ‘normal’ and Mammoth Mountain has reported five feet (one and a half metres) of powder over the past four days. Conditions are also good in Whistler which now has 7,000 acres of terrain open, although still not yet its full 8,100 acres, the most on the continent.
