Snow showers and temperatures near freezing are in the forecast for the days just before Thanksgiving, when many will be traveling to their holiday destinations.
Yet ski resorts are lamenting the unseasonably warm weather of late, with several having to postpone their openings and conditions deteriorating at the resorts that have opened.
After a balmy weekend with temperatures in the 60s, the National Weather Service is calling for highs in the mid-30s, rain and snow for the metro area, starting Tuesday into Wednesday.
Those planning a ski holiday are strategizing anew, with Vail and Steamboat Springs the most recent resorts to postpone their openings.
“It’s always nice to get open for Thanksgiving but the fact of the matter is, sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t,” said Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association trade group. “If we can be up and operating in a substantial fashion by the middle of December, it bodes well for the industry.”
Snowmaking has begun in earnest in the high country, but the machines need to operate in temperatures hovering around freezing or below with low humidity. In Colorado, resort operators say it’s been about 10 degrees above normal for the past couple of weeks.
Assistant state climatologist Nolan Doeskin of Fort Collins says the pattern is typical. Often, there is a significant storm the week of Thanksgiving that delivers snow to the mountains — such as one that’s in the forecast for next week. “It will be interesting to see how it unfolds,” Doeskin said.
Seven of Colorado’s ski resorts are open as of today with limited runs, including Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin, Winter Park and Wolf Creek. At least three have postponed opening dates from today to next week or later.
It’s only the second time in 27 years that the Steamboat resort has delayed its opening, this time from Wednesday to Nov. 30, said resort spokeswoman Heidi Thomsen. The other postponement occurred in 2001.
Although Steamboat started making snow Nov. 3, the warmer weather has prevented full use of the machines. Conditions are expected to improve next week, Thomsen said.
“We’ve kind of been through weather patterns like this before,” Murray Selleck, a manager of the town’s Ski Haus International shop. “For Steamboat Springs, winter could show up overnight.”
In the nine years that Bill Jensen has been in Vail, the chief operating officer of Vail Mountain says a storm has hit every year between Nov. 15 and Nov. 30. That’s why he’s counting on next week’s forecast to help open the resort on Wednesday.
Vail’s independent forecasters are predicting up to 1.5 feet of snow in a storm that will hit Tuesday and continue through Friday morning. “For a ski area, that’s a good thing,” Jensen said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
