North America Weekly Roundup #266

Powder Blanket Across the West: Snowfall Covers Arizona to Oregon

• Early Season Momentum: Several U.S. ski resorts, including Arapahoe Basin and Keystone in Colorado, have launched their 2024-25 seasons early due to significant snowfall and cold weather.
• Upcoming Openings: More resorts in Colorado, Utah, and California are poised to open soon, with promising snow forecasts for the Rockies and Pacific Northwest regions.
• Wide-Spread Snowfall: Fresh snowfall has been reported across various states, with accumulations reaching up to a foot in Oregon and Washington, setting the stage for additional resort openings.

USA REPORT

Things have been moving quickly in the US over the past week, with more cold and snowy weather leading to more centres opening, either permanently for the season or for temporary pre-season preview days. The snowfall has been wide-spread with ski areas in Arizona and California posting 6” (15cm) accumulations whilst further north in states like Oregon and Washington its been more like a foot (30cm).

There's also been a dusting of snowfall in the Midwest. Among the resorts that have joined Wolf Creek (17/17” / 43/43cm) in opening for the season are fellow Colorado areas and usual early openers Arapahoe Basin and Keystone, both starting their 24-25 seasons on Saturday. Arapahoe Basin had their Black Mountain Express spinning from 8:30am serving their High Noon run, whilst Keystone hit its opening target of having at least two-miles of slopes open from the start when they opened at 9am. It had its Schoolmarm and Silver Spoon trails open plus a learning area accessed by their Kokomo Carpet and a hike-to terrain park at the top of Spring Dipper. The centres opening follows a switch from unseasonably warm weather last weekend to very cold and sometimes snowy weather over the past few days. Lows down to 10F were recorded and centres have reported up to 12” (30cm) of snowfall.

Outside of Colorado, Nevada’s season also got underway with the weekend opening of Lee Canyon near Las Vegas. It had a small area open including terrain park features and offered mountain biking and snowsports on the same day for the first time. It plans to open Fridays to Sundays moving forwards. Timberline in Oregon also opened at the weekend thanks to plenty of fresh snowfall there, but it was one day only for pass holders.

Before they all opened though, Sunday River opened one run for Halloween to have the first terrain open with traditional subzero snowmaking in the East, if just for a few hours (it has since closed again- saying the day was just for fun, not the season start). It briefly joined Ski Ward in Massachusetts, which has had a small snow area open for several weeks thanks to all-weather snowmaking.

At least two more Colorado ski areas are expected to open this coming weekend, Breckenridge and Copper and it looks likely the first centre to open in Utah for the 24-25 season, Brian Head, will join them. California’s Mt Rose has also announced that it plans to be the first in the state to open for the 24-25 season there.

USA FORECAST

It’s looking pretty good for much of North America over the coming week with some very low temperatures and light-to-moderate snowfall widely forecast in the Rockies, with more snow in the Pacific Midwest as well. It will be warmer and sunnier further south in ski states like California, and mostly sunny in the east and Midwest too, although a temperature dip is expected at the weekend.

CANADA REPORT

Canada’s 24-25 season failed to launch as hoped last weekend with Mt Norquay announcing after we’d published our previous week’s reports that it wouldn’t be opening on Saturday 2nd as planned. But Lake Louise (20/34cm / 8/13”) did open on Tuesday, so Canada has now got its season underway. There have also been some big snowfalls further werst, in line with La Nina projections, with Red Mountain in BC reporting 67cm (27”) totals over four days to Tuesday. Norquay is now aiming to open this coming weekend when at least four more Canadian centres plan to open. They include fellow Banff resorts Sunshine as well as Jasper’s Marmot Basin ski area and Nakiska, closest resort to Calgary. On the East Coast Quebec’s Sommet St Sauveur has also looked close to opening but warmer weather to end the week thwarted earlier snowmaking efforts.

CANADA FORECAST

A period of fairly dry and sunny weather is forecast for Western Canada for the remainder of this week, but with temperatures dipping as low as -10C and more snowfall expected to return at the weekend. Drier and warmer in the East.