Eastern Snowboarding
Weather Vs. the Ski and Snowboard Business
I was initially going to write a post about what a great year it was for the ski resport industry in North America. Then I realized it wasn’t entirely great. Sure, the west coast had a pretty good year. Intrawest cleaned up in BC and Colorado thanks to decent conditions (though a strong Canadian dollar didn’t help their case). Utah had another good year (note to self: seems consistent). Oregon had a good year, too. But then I remembered: Hello? East coast?
This was not the best year for the east. Here in Ontario and upstate New York, things weren’t bad; I would say it was another typical season. We don’t get tons of snow, but it was generally cold enough to maintain a good base of machine snow throughout the season. Business as usual, it seemed.
But if you headed any further east, things got downright ugly. Tremblant suffered a strike during the holiday season, although conditions weren’t too bad. In Vermont, though, bad weather hit the area hard. According to Intrawest, skier visits to Stratton were down more than 10%. This article even quoted a resort manager in Vermont as saying it was one of the worst seasons on record.
It seems like every year a particular region has a bad season, dozens of articles on the imminent downfall of the resort industry in that area emerge. Global warming, the critics say, will fell most resorts. And if this does start to happen, this article suggests that resorts will promote their elevations instead of acreage. The higher up you go, the argument will be, the more consistent weather you’ll experience. And that’s bad news for relatively low-elevation resorts.
Post script: I just realized I never made the point I was thinking in my head: I don’t buy the alarmist stuff. I think some region has a bad year, every year. I don’t doubt global warming is having an environmental impact, but I don’t believe it’s going to take out any North American ski resorts in our lifetime.
Discussion
5 comments for “Weather Vs. the Ski and Snowboard Business”
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The funny thing is that these resorts simply need to stay below 32 degrees at night to complete snowmaking. It is not like global warming is keeping night time temps above the freezing mark. Reality is that as long as it starts freezing at night in October or so, which it is still gonna do even at low elevations, and as long as resorts have snowmaking, they will make snow and ensure a good base for the season.
This doom and gloom stuff is crap and the “global warming’s impact on the ski industry” is even worse crap. 2006 again is matching last seasons records for skier visits at around 57M in the US.
There is some evidence that “global warming” will change weather patterns and that it actually means more snow in some areas at the expense of others. Warmer air promotes evaporation into the prevailing wind currents and when moist air rises over the Continental Divide, it cools and condenses, producing snow.
Global warming does not mean massive droughts. Hell, they tried (see the French and one of the Kennedy’s) to blame the failure to enact Kyoto as the cause of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year.
If scientists cannot predict with any accuracy the occurance of volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earth quakes, and the like, how am I to believe that they can predict weather patterns. This is alarmist tactics at its worst.
yeah, you know, now that I re-read my entry I realized I didn’t really make the point I was thinking in my head: I don’t think resorts are too concerned. SOME region is going to have a bad year, every year. That’s just how weather works.
–adam
I don’t think global warming is necessarily the future downfall of ski resorts, and I do belive every region has a bad year, but it was really bad this year in the east. I live in connecticut and every year get up to vermont and mass a fw times, and even a trip to maine. Places were closing in january in conecticut, and I was at stowe, which I think ahs the highest elevation of any resort in the east, in february, and the region, after years of warnigns, maybe we’re begthere base was total ice, from RAIN in FEBRUARY at the HIGHEST resort elevation in the east. It wasn’t just bad year for inning to slowly see the effects of global warming. I was a doubter in the alarmists, but you wern’t at stowe in february, or wern’t driving by brown trails in ct.
I don’t think global warming is necessarily the future downfall of ski resorts, and I do belive every region has a bad year, but it was really bad this year in the east. I live in connecticut and every year get up to vermont and mass a few times, and even a trip to maine. Places were closing in january in conecticut, and I was at stowe in vermont, which I think has the highest elevation of any resort in the east, in february, and their base was total ice, from RAIN in FEBRUARY at the HIGHEST resort elevation in the east. It wasn’t just a bad year for the region, maybe we’re slowly beginning see the effects of global warming. I was a doubter in the alarmists, but you weren’t at stowe in february, or weren’t driving by brown trails in ct.
Andrew,
Thakns for the comment.
I was actually at Jay Peak in February and saw a similar scene. Even the year prior to that one, conditions weren’t great. But because I only go out there once a year, I keep wondering if it’s my lousy timing, or if weather patterns are starting to change. I’m going to see if I can dig up any research on that.
–adam