Heavy snow has been falling on North Western North America over the past 72 hours – good news for the normally snowy region which had had a below average start to the season in some areas.
The Pacific coast had had snow well below average, just as four years ago ahead of the Vancouver Olympics, and in some places it was worse, particularly on Vancouver Island where Mount Washington, an official training base for the 2010 Games and with a deep snow reputation, has had to postpone opening for around a month, until today. 65cm of fresh snow in the past 24 hours has transformed conditions there for the better.
Whistler reported a similar two feet of snow over the weekend, bolstering its base to 1.7m. Inland Big White and Kicking Horse are among those reporting a foot of new snow in the past 24 hours, most other resorts in BC and Alberta report at least 20cm.
Just south of the order Mt Baker in Washington State, which normally reports the most snowfall in the world of any ski area every season, with more than 20 metres, is also regaining lost ground with more than 80cm of new snow reported in the last seven days. Resorts in Colorado and Utah have also been receiving 20-30cm snowfalls over the past few days. Jackson Hole in Wyoming has also reported a foot of snow for each of two days in a rows.
The news is not yet very good further south still in California however, where resorts around Tahoe and further south such as Mammoth have reported around 20% of the normal precipitation for the season so far, although most have top-to-bottom terrain open thanks to snowmaking.