Wasatch Weather Weenies

With slim pickings for powder this weekend in the Innsbruck Area mountains, we headed up to the Stubai Gletscher ski area at the upper end of the Stubaital to see what the Austrian Alps look like from 3000+ meters. Stubai Gletsher is Austria's largest glacier skiing resort.  It's a 45 minute drive from Innsbruck, or 75 minutes if you do the 590 bus as we did from the Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof (main train station).   The bus drops you off 50 meters from the base of the Eisgratbahn, an incredible 24-seat, 32 person cable car that whisks you from 1695 meters to 2900 meters (4280 vertical feet), dropping you in the center of the upper ski area. Source:  https://www.stubaier-gletscher.com Walk outside and your basically at the glacier.   Another gondola will take you higher to the self-proclaimed "Top of the Tirol" at 3210 meters. Despite the altitude, the vast majority of the skiable terrain is of the low-angle variety, ideal for beginners ...

The 2019 Nordic World Championships are underway here in Austria with the skiing events in Seefeld and the jumping events here in Innsbruck.  Spectators from many countries are showing their colors in town.  It's sort of an mini Olympics. Our original plan for Saturday was to attend the women's 15-km skiathalon, but I put off buying tickets for too long and all that was left when I checked online yesterday were the pricier ones.  That turned out to be fortunate as the race was won by Therese Johaug in a blowout, as she seems to be doing regularly this year, and there wasn't much back and forth even for the podiums.  Congrats to Rosie Brennan of the US on grabbing a 10th place finish.  Instead, we went to the ski jumping world championships at the Bergisel ski jump right here in Innsbruck.  It was a great experience.  This is the third major ski jump competition I've attended (the others were at the 1998 and 2002 Olympic Winter Games) and they are g...

Today (Thursday) I snuck off for my mid-week morning tour up one of the local ski areas for exercise and views.  This time, rather than Patscherkofel, I went to Mutterer Alm, mainly because it has a bit more of an eastern exposure and was likely to soften up earlier in the morning.  We haven't had snow here in some time and it has been unseasonably mild, so it is essential to adapt to the Frühlingsskifahren (spring skiing) conditions.  In addition, the ski area is relatively low angle, so skinning would not be too difficult if I found a frozen surface.  The tour ended up being far more interesting than usual, if only to observe how these resorts encourage diverse user groups to enjoy their terrain.  For example, on the ascent, I passed many tourers.  I am no ski-mo animal.  There were lots of tourers out, many of them not necessarily strong climbers, but taking advantage of the sun and the low-angle ski terrain.  Good for them.  ...

It's quite remarkable the difference in the cost of a day or half day pass in Austria compared to the United States. St. Anton is one of the five largest ski resorts in the world with more than 80 chairlifts and 300 km of groomed pistes.  A day pass there during the peak season is 54.50 euro ($61.80).  That is less than half the walk-up cost of a day pass at Snowbird ($125).   Smaller resorts in Austria are also inexpensive.  Take a resort like Axamer Lizum near Innsbruck.  More vertical than Alta, but perhaps a little less acreage (but not by a lot).  A peak season day ticket is 39.50 euro ($44.80)!  I'm not making this up.  Here's a screen shot.   Can't ski all day?  How about a half-day ticket for 33.00 euro or a 2-hour ticket for 24.00 euro.  Note that you can buy the half-day ticket for morning or afternoon and the 2-hour ticket for any period you want.   OK you say, but the US has these am...

The National Centers for Environmental Prediction Short-Range Ensemble Forecast System (SREF) provides forecasts for the contiguous U.S. at 16-km grid spacing four times a day out to 87 hours.  The ensemble is comprised of 26 forecasts, with 13 from the Advanced Research version of the WRF model (ARW) and 13 from the Nonhydrostatic Mesoscale model on a B grid (NMB).  NOAA does not stand for the National Organization for the Advancement of Acronyms for nothing. We have been downscaling the SREF forecasts to higher resolution for some time, but Mike Wessler, a student in my group, has recently upgraded our processing significantly.  Specifically, he's decreased the grid spacing of the downscaled forecasts to 800 meters, added estimates of snow-to-liquid ratio, and added the capability of converting the downscale precipitation forecasts into downscaled snowfall forecasts.  He has also improved the graphics considerably.  We went "live" with these improvements y...

After a day of rest, recovery, and a bit of work, the bluebird skies and the mountains called me out once again for a day of ski touring in the Tux Alps south of Innsbruck.  It hasn't snowed much in these parts in some time due to the Steenburgh effect and thanks to a huge ridge that sits over Europe, temperatures are exceptionally warm as well.  Options are limited for powder, but the beautiful Alps help to make up for that.  Beautiful weather and level 1 (low) avalanche conditions have also encouraged the already avid tirolean ski-touring community to get after it.  It reminded me a bit of home today when we arrived at the trailhead.  My partner commented "welcome to the Tirol!" It reminded me of how I often say "welcome to Wasangeles" in the Wasatch.  We saw just a few people out while we were ski touring.  It may have been busy, but like nearly everywhere else, ski tourers (and nordic skiers) are amongst the nicest, friendliest ...

Sometime in late 2000, the Salt Lake Olympic Committee asked me to go to St. Anton, Austria and learn about weather support and weather-related issues during the Alpine Skiing World Championships in February 2001. This may surprise you, but I initially begged off of the trip.  I had attended the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano and didn't feel I'd learn much.  I suggested they send someone else.  They insisted.  So I got online to look up a bit more about St. Anton and found something that said it was a great expert ski area with a hedonistic night life.  I called them back and said that I would go. It was a great trip.  I had never skied in Europe before and I learned a great deal interacting with venue managers for the Salt Lake Games and former ski team coaches.  Daron Rahlves won the Super-G and I clanked mugs with him at the bar that night (he wouldn't remember).  We stayed in an all-inclusive resort in St. Christoph on the Arlberg Pass th...