How is it that Whitetail only blows one or two inches of snow when the temps were in the teens up there last night?

And Liberty's webcams look even more depressing......it looks like they didn't blow anything last night.

Is it me or are the cams not updated? I assumed they would blanket the place because this is there only window of opportunity over the next 10 days or so.

It may have been that it didn't get cold enough until later in the night and on top of that it really depends on what the humidity was doing. Throw in the fact that between now and Christmas they may not get the skier traffic they want it may not justify them throwing down thick layer. It's also supposed to rain during the weekend so even if they made it it's just going to get eroded.

Darn I wasn't paying attention, but I don't think it got into the teens. The low for Mercersburg yesterday was 29. Plus with the wind low, we often get temperature inversions. The heavier cold air rushes down the mountain and settles at the lower elevations so it's warmer at the mountain than what gets reported for Mercersburg.

Because there is a huge startup cost to just turning on the snowmaking, it's not something that's practical to do for just an hour or two. But at this time of year Whitetail and Liberty will make snow at almost every opportunity because every little bit helps. With the warm short term forecast, the strategy is mainly to keep whatever we already have open. With borderline temps and high humidity, even 1-2 inches is a gift that will help keep Whitetail open through Xmas.

That's exactly what we had at 7S. The base got down to 28-29 area, but the top was far warmer. I live 500' lower than 7S's base and it was 19 here, while 29 at the base when I woke up. Not good for any of us.

It unfortunately never got in the teens. It barely dipped below freezing. I checked the webcam and temp around 1:30 a.m., and the temperature in Mercersburg was still around 34 or 35 and it didn't look like any snowguns were running yet. I imagine they were only able to turn the guns on briefly shortly before sunrise.

Oh well, something is better than nothing.

Snowmaking was better in WV.

I think credit must be given to Whitetail for being honest. I wish every resort in this area was as well-managed. Hats off to the tail.

Checked the cams around 2AM last night. Noticed that they were making snow at the very top, just at the edge of some of the cams looking up the slopes, guess it was too warm at the time to make snow at the bottom. Looks like they were trying to make as much as they could where the temps would permit.

I give Whitetail a lot of credit too. I've skied there 4 times since opening day, and the last time (Monday) was getting "dodgy" with all the growing brown spots. Tuesday night there were only a few hours of cold enough temps, and what they had to do was just freshen/whiten up what they already had open. It's gonna be a long time before they can open up the whole mountain.

See, this is where it gets confusing because when I left the house in Frederick on Wed. a.m. the temp was 21, so I assumed it must be at least 2 degress colder in Mercersburg. So does that mean it was warmer at Whitetail than in Frederick? Sounds fishy to me. I checked the NOAA site and it was 19 in Mercersburg according to the NOAA obs at 7 a.m. and yet they were not cranking out any snow. Now we all know why......because they were anticipating the rain to come and they had switched to the philosophy of "diminishing returns". I understand the business side, but they are going to be quite surprised that the forecasters are wrong about the amounts of rain and the temps are overestimated and we the paying public get to suffer as a result with one lousy run open at Whitetail and Liberty never blew anything on Heavenly....Boooooo!

Whew....I feel much better now!

What about micro-climates and inversions? Unless you are standing at various points on the mountain with a Carrier approved professional thermometer, it's hard to get an accurate temperature read. Furthermore, relative humidity is key in snowmaking (wet bulb temps). In short, snowmaking is quite a science and it's tough to arm chair quarterback what the professionals are doing.

Michael,

It may be hard for you to believe that it simply was not cold enough at Whitetail to make more snow. It may be easy for you to believe that SnowTime was trying to save money because of the bad weather. But consider this: starting a snowmaking system is like turning on a florescent light. There is a huge energy investment just to turn the system on because air and water have to be run through several compression and cooling cycles before they are ready to be blown (but if they are only using the fan guns, they only have to compress water at the plant). Once you've gone through the investment into getting started, you want to blow for as long as you can. If they were trying to save money, why would they have started the guns at all for just a couple of hours and why would they have blown on the tubing slope? There's a very good chance that that entire slope will be bare by Sunday.

Of course, I am biased because I work there. But because I work there and I know a little something about how things work, I can tell you that the snowmaking strategy used at Whitetail this year has been to maximise the amount of snow being made instead of concentrating it on a few runs. Tubing, Limelight and Exhibition were a couple of days away from being ready to open, but in hindsight seems foolish for trying. Why did they try? Because they have fan guns on them and fan guns provide extra snowmaking capacity via their onboard air compressors.

Have you ever experienced a temperature inversion at Whitetail? Shortly after full sunset, for about 5 minutes on the EZ rider lift, there will be about a 25 mph downdraft of cold air at the surface hitting you in the face as you get on the lift. As you hit the first lift tower, the wind switches directions and is about 20 degrees warmer. In 13 seasons, I've personally experienced this all of 3 times. Normally, at most, there is a 1-2 degreee temperature difference between the bottom and the top. But weather can do weird things occasionally. Being warmer in Mercersburg than in Frederick does not even rate as weird. That's just unusual. Did you know that Blairs Valley sometimes has its own micro climate? There are many times when the weather at Whitetail differs significantly from Clear Spring and Mercersburg town which are just a few miles away. Did you know that official temperature measurements are made 6 inches off the ground? That's why we can have a frost when the temperature does not officially get down to 32. During an inversion, it's also one more reason why snow can not be made 20 feet above ground when the wet bulb temperature at ground level may be below 32.

Second guessing, Monday morning quarterbacking and 20-20 hindsight may be fun. And we are going to be making some mistakes along the way (that is the nature of making lots of decisions - you get some of the wrong). Whitetail pays big money for a resort specific weather forecast. Occasionally, it's wrong just like any forecast. But historically, it's been worth every penny. We may know a lot about our weather, but we have not figured out a way to change it.

At Whitetail, we are skiers and riders too. This weather hurts us in our hearts just like yours. We get it beat into our thick heads every week that we need to strive to make every customer experience so enjoyable that they will want to return again and again. We do care. We try very very hard to not "make the public suffer". We also hope that you will find it in your heart to see that we are trying as hard as we can to get our season going.

Disclaimer - this is not an "official" message from Whitetail. It's just an opinion from a guy who works there and cares.