After some washout weather last week, conditions at the local slopes are looking up.
Cypress Mountain Resort, Grouse Mountain and Mt Seymour were all receiving a hefty dump of snow on Monday through Tuesday.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Cypress reported 60 centimetres and Seymour reported over 53 centimetres of snowfall over 48 hours. Conditions were wet Monday, with temperatures hovering around 0 to 1 C, but cooled further on Tuesday to -1 to -3 C. Visibility was being limited by fog.
Cooler weather is expected through this week with sunshine forecasted by Environment Canada on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Moderate snowfall is expected again Friday evening, according to snow-forecast.com.
“It’s a little foggy but compared to two days ago it’s night and day difference,” said Joffrey Koeman, director of sales and marketing and Cypress Mountain Resort.
“It’s still snowing out there, snowing heavy,” he said. “In addition to that, we’ll fire up our snowmaking system as well for a seven-day stretch of snowmaking weather.”
With weather like this, Koeman said it’s likely that Cypress will open up more terrain, and hopefully the Raven Ridge Quad chair. “Winter’s back,” he said.
While La Niña year usually means more snow than average, an atmospheric river descended on the Southern Coast of B.C. last week, bringing heavy rainfall and warmer-than-average temperatures.
But for skiers and snowboarders, the forecast is looking better for the rest of this season. As part of its temperature and precipitation probabilistic forecast for January to March, Environment Canada is projecting a high likelihood of near-normal weather.
“That’s exactly what we want,” said Simon Whitehead, marketing manager at Mt Seymour, adding that February is typically Vancouver’s coldest month and often is host to stormy weather as well.
If you plan on heading up to Seymour on a Tuesday, Whitehead is reminding mountain goers about the Backpack Buddy program. If you buy a afternoon/evening lift ticket for either one adult and one child ($39) or one adult and one youth ($55), a weekend’s worth of food and snacks will be provided for a child facing hunger in B.C.
