If all goes well, I will be working this spring on a new edition of my book Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth. Thus, I'm taking requests. Let me know of any topics you'd like to see covered better or in greater depth.
It would be interesting to see meteorological teardowns of some banner years (e.g., 10/11) and disaster years (e.g., 14/15); what factors beyond ENSO can make or break a Wasatch snow season?
-Agree with Steve P on GSL. I've wondered too. -Would like to see quant. info on trending of opening and closing days, snow/liquid ratios, etc as we see climate change impacts. -Digging up radar or historical info on specific past storms to highlight points would be fun. Geeking out on analysis just a little, in other words. -Something to inspire younger generations. My kids really liked the weather club at NAA when it was operational and I like to relay to them what I read here and from the book.
Thanks for all you do, Jim. It's fun to soak up whatever you choose to share with the public.
It would be interesting to see a resort by resort breakdown of the forecasted snowpack at base elevations. Park City looks bleak this year, but the Cottonwood resorts look ok. What is in store in the future for Squaw Valley? Whistler?
What can Park City do to prepare for the future?
What about the snowpack at the new Mayflower Resort? It already seems to be substantially in the shadow.
I see Mayflower as a real-estate development with some ski trails rather than a ski area. Natural snowpack there is marginal by Utah standards, similar to the Jordanelle area of Deer Valley. Hopefully they are putting in some good mountain biking trails.
I think what we are seeing so far this season is a glimpse of the future. In the long run, upper-elevation north facing terrain in the Cottonwoods will be even more valuable and desired for skiing. Snowmaking will become more and more critical. It will be harder and harder to start the ski season in November and early December.
The older skiing generations of the Wasatch claim that foothill skiing was a more frequent occurrence in past decades and I’d be curious to see the statistical breakdown of that claim. Thanks for all of your blog posts btw. I always learn something new and look forward to reading them.
That's a tough one for me to answer, only because there are no long-term snow observing sites there and one would need to do some sort of satellite and snow model trickery to get reasonable estimates, and those would probably only be good for a couple of decades.
There's pretty good evidence across the western U.S. of decreasing snow at elevations comparable to the foothills, so I suspect it's probably legit.
I'll probably be beefing up this aspect of the book for the next edition, adding more information on recent snow trends and projections and their impacts on skiing.
I would love to see information on how man's weather manipulation does or does not affect our weather and snow pack. From simple acts like cloud seeding with silver iodine, chemtrail contrail scientifically show how a plane at one altitude can have the contrail dissolve just after passing but a plane at a different altitude the chemtrail will stay there and grow for long periods of time. Man has been trying to change the weather for many years now let's look into how it has affected the snow pack.
Utah is one of several western states which spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on cloud seeding. Members of the public and many politicians might be overestimating our ability to manipulate the weather and the effectiveness of cloud seeding. Despite that, as water supplies dwindle it might become a more popular measure. You say in this book that "The effectiveness of cloud seeding for precipitation enhancement remains controversial". Is that still the case? Why?
Maybe something like top ten snow producing micro climates of the world is something along those lines
ReplyDeleteThat's a good idea. I've done a blog post on it previously too: https://wasatchweatherweenies.blogspot.com/2015/10/top-10-ski-area-microclimates.html
DeleteIt would be interesting to see meteorological teardowns of some banner years (e.g., 10/11) and disaster years (e.g., 14/15); what factors beyond ENSO can make or break a Wasatch snow season?
ReplyDeleteThis would be interesting, although I'm not sure we have a good idea what the answer is. Future research is needed!
DeletePer the recent news stories, expand on what the shrinking Great Salt Lake will do, both in terms of less lake effect and more dust.
ReplyDeleteGood idea.
DeleteSome spaghetti on the wall here:
ReplyDelete-Agree with Steve P on GSL. I've wondered too.
-Would like to see quant. info on trending of opening and closing days, snow/liquid ratios, etc as we see climate change impacts.
-Digging up radar or historical info on specific past storms to highlight points would be fun. Geeking out on analysis just a little, in other words.
-Something to inspire younger generations. My kids really liked the weather club at NAA when it was operational and I like to relay to them what I read here and from the book.
Thanks for all you do, Jim. It's fun to soak up whatever you choose to share with the public.
Good ideas!
DeleteIt would be interesting to see a resort by resort breakdown of the forecasted snowpack at base elevations. Park City looks bleak this year, but the Cottonwood resorts look ok. What is in store in the future for Squaw Valley? Whistler?
ReplyDeleteWhat can Park City do to prepare for the future?
What about the snowpack at the new Mayflower Resort? It already seems to be substantially in the shadow.
I see Mayflower as a real-estate development with some ski trails rather than a ski area. Natural snowpack there is marginal by Utah standards, similar to the Jordanelle area of Deer Valley. Hopefully they are putting in some good mountain biking trails.
DeleteI think what we are seeing so far this season is a glimpse of the future. In the long run, upper-elevation north facing terrain in the Cottonwoods will be even more valuable and desired for skiing. Snowmaking will become more and more critical. It will be harder and harder to start the ski season in November and early December.
The older skiing generations of the Wasatch claim that foothill skiing was a more frequent occurrence in past decades and I’d be curious to see the statistical breakdown of that claim. Thanks for all of your blog posts btw. I always learn something new and look forward to reading them.
ReplyDeleteThat's a tough one for me to answer, only because there are no long-term snow observing sites there and one would need to do some sort of satellite and snow model trickery to get reasonable estimates, and those would probably only be good for a couple of decades.
DeleteThere's pretty good evidence across the western U.S. of decreasing snow at elevations comparable to the foothills, so I suspect it's probably legit.
I'll probably be beefing up this aspect of the book for the next edition, adding more information on recent snow trends and projections and their impacts on skiing.
1. Spotlight a few Backcountry spots and focus on the factors that make those spots so special
ReplyDelete2. Avalanche activity in Utah
Consequences of January rain events on snowpack, and supercooled icing etc.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be getting more frequent too.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see information on how man's weather manipulation does or does not affect our weather and snow pack. From simple acts like cloud seeding with silver iodine, chemtrail contrail scientifically show how a plane at one altitude can have the contrail dissolve just after passing but a plane at a different altitude the chemtrail will stay there and grow for long periods of time. Man has been trying to change the weather for many years now let's look into how it has affected the snow pack.
ReplyDeleteUtah is one of several western states which spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on cloud seeding. Members of the public and many politicians might be overestimating our ability to manipulate the weather and the effectiveness of cloud seeding. Despite that, as water supplies dwindle it might become a more popular measure. You say in this book that "The effectiveness of cloud seeding for precipitation enhancement remains controversial". Is that still the case? Why?
ReplyDelete