Staying the Course...

Greetings,

Mother nature finally came through with some snow. 5-6 inches was forecasted for Thursday and then it kept snowing. There was a lull on Friday and then more snow Friday night and then into Saturday morning. 10 – 12 inches of new snow is always welcome.




We have compiled some data on snowfall and temperatures for the months of November and December:

Season-to-date snowfall – For the months of Nov. and Dec. Okemo received less than a third of normal accumulations (21.2” this season vs. 68.4” avg. of last 4 years a
decrease of 31%).

Season-to-date temperatures – Nov. & Dec. were 5.1° & 5.7° above normal respectively while the first 13 days of January were 8.2 ° above normal.

As you can tell things have been different this year. Of course to add on top of this the snow we got melted 4 times so the net impact has been 0”natural snowpack! As for the temperatures, when hovering at 32°, this is literally the difference between making snow and not chance of making snow!

So what have we been doing about it? Here are some stats:

--Hours of snowmaking are about 75% of last year. We will be continuing to make while temperatures permit

--We have pumped about half the amount of water we normally would have at this time. Obviously due to less hours and the temperatures being above normal.

--And we have had about half of our normal acre foot production. Due to the information above.


The entire Okemo staff have been working hard to deal with the challenges this year and try to outsmart mother nature. Hopefully you, our guests have realized this effort and have not been impacted too much. We appreciate your allegiance and hanging with us.

You may see a few operational changes around the resort, but for the most part, our plan is to stay the course and continue to provide the best possible skiing and riding experience possible and we will continue to make snow. As always thanks for skiing and riding with us. If you want to follow what is going on from my desk, follow me on twitter @okemogm

See you on the slopes

Bruce Schmidt
Okemo GM