Time for golf or tennis?

Just how bad is the snow this year?  This is what our house should look like.

This is our house as of this morning.

This is Jasper at the street corner in a reasonably normal winter.

Same street corner.

Pretty dramatic difference, huh?  The only good news is that our temperatures have been cold enough that the resorts can make snow.  As a result, most have about half their slopes open, although it is almost all beginner and intermediate terrain.  The expert slopes are just to steep to keep sufficient snow on.  An easy to read summary of the Utah resorts' snow conditions can be found here.

Colorado seems to be as bad as Utah and the east coast is no better.  I guess all we can say is "thank God we aren't California!"  In addition to the lack of nature's help, they have had temperatures that are so warm they can't make much snow.   Squaw, a huge resort at Lake Tahoe, only has 5 of their 177 runs open.  Wow!


Some local snow fall numbers...  Alta, which is one of the snowiest resorts in our area, has had 92" of snow this year.  That may seem like a lot but 76" of that was before December, and the early snows tend to compact and melt.  A normal year would have Alta at about 200" and last year they had 264" at this point. 

If you are wondering, yes, the 14.5 feet of variation between the two years does seem to make a difference in skiable terrain.  Tonight they are calling for 1-3 inches, followed by 7 days of sunshine.