2008 Ski Season

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sthguy
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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

Unread post by sthguy »

Almost time to move onto the next issue - lack of snow for skiers 8-[

This warm NW rain will remove much snow from below the 1800m mark
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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

sthguy wrote:Almost time to move onto the next issue - lack of snow for skiers 8-[

This warm NW rain will remove much snow from below the 1800m mark

but then, they could use their solar powered snow making machines :roll:

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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

Unread post by southernthrash »

The snow will come back next week. Wash outs are pretty common in NZ, just something to get used to really.

Should be excellent snowmaking conditions from monday also, the system at coronet peak is incredibly impressive now.
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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

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The southern fields will require significant snowfall/snowmaking before getting close to good condition, judging by the snow loss below 1600m or so over the last week.
As usual though, the field operators will overstate the quality of cover in order to get the punters up there.
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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

Unread post by spwill »

the field operators will overstate the quality of cover in order to get the punters up there.
Yes, but the apres sKi is always good in Qtwn :D
Hopefully some good snow melt and run off for the Lakes.
Looks like good snow making weather down south next week and some natural snow on the way for Ruapehu.
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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

Unread post by southernthrash »

Haha oh it is indeed!

It is a business for skifield operators at the end of the day, and one in which only very modest profits are involved. The beauty of the internet is the advent of the webcam, and they don't lie (usually) and there are a couple of other webcams that can be used to check the snow on coronet peak which are independently run as well.

A washout like this at this time of the year isn't a big deal, there isn't usually a huge base at this time of the year anyway, and next week is looking good for snow and snowmaking.

Good conditions in NZ aren't really until late July at the earliest, August, and early September, anything before that is generally considered luck.
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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

Unread post by sthguy »

I agree, skiing in June has always been difficult.
Did anyone see the pathetic opening on Ruapehu on tele tonight - just one pathetic crusty patch of snow. That is really conning people in my opinion.
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Re: NZ's Hydro Storage situation

Unread post by southernthrash »

It's crazy, for some reason, there is a demand from the public to have skiing in June, when conditions are normally average at best. Yet by the end of August, your average punter has lost interest, when there is usually much more snow through september and october than in June (and the weather is nicer and warmer, the light is better, afternoon waterskiing, etc). Skifields in NZ often don't close because of lack of snow, but rather, lack of customers. Especailly since most late season skiers and boarders are season pass holders who are worth bugger all financially to the lift companies. Last year (supposedly the worst ever) people were snowboarding at cardrona into late November, and at remarkables for even longer. There has in the past also been rumours of a short summer season at remarkables over the summer holiday period following the big snow seasons (sugar bowl holds snow very well). But alas, despite aggressive marketing, cheap accommodation options, better weather, better snow, frequent lift pass discount deals, and package deals, the skifields in NZ struggle to maintain a profitable customer base through the spring. What happens is, there is increasing media and public pressure every year for them to open earlier, ski and snowboard forums get overrun through may and june by punters asking when the mountains will be open, when it will snow, etc. And the lift companies themselves apparently recieve a huge amount of email asking when they will open, why they aren't open earlier and other loonie punter ranting.

These are often the same punters who bag "bad" seasons so much, my guess is that if they waited a month, they would be a lot happier. The key, at the end of the day, is to be flexible and be able to hit the snow when its on. I've had some amazing days in June, and October, and July, August and September.
Last edited by southernthrash on Sat 14/06/2008 20:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by southernthrash »

Things should start to cool down for the southern lakes from tomorrow, hopefully coronet can get the guns going, I wanna go for a slide on Wednesday! Have to say, I'm actually rather surprised at how well the snow pack at coronet held up to warm rain and high temps.

Looking further ahead, next week should provide a welcome boost to really kick start things.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by southernthrash »

Long way out yet, but GFS is looking very promising for 22-30 Jun time period. Good to see the potential there, now just gotta wait and see how the models stack up over the next many runs.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by spwill »

Yes, ECMWF is suggestive of snow on all our fields from next weekend.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

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for some reason, there is a demand from the public to have skiing in June, when conditions are normally average at best
A demand hyped up by the marketing gimmicks we've seen in the last few month - building expectations that are divorced from reality
Yet by the end of August, your average punter has lost interest, when there is usually much more snow through september and october than in June
And many have run out of money, spent chasing the poor conditions around earlier...
Skifields in NZ often don't close because of lack of snow, but rather, lack of customers. Especailly since most late season skiers and boarders are season pass holders who are worth bugger all financially to the lift companies.
And again this is because the casual skier client base have spent their skiing budget. And this type of skier will be under even more pressure this year. With the spending purse being closed somewhat I'd expect the numbers skiing this year will be less than previous years.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by southernthrash »

I think if you talk to people involved with skifield management, you will find that early openings are a response to market pressure, not helped by the school holidays now being in early July. This is a fairly widely held sentiment within the snowsports community, to the point that Ohau have invested in snowmaking to enable them to open a month earlier than normal, as customer feedback indicated they wanted to be able to ski in June and early July.

Skifields don't make a secret of when their best conditions are to con people into going up early, historic snowfall data is freely available, and if your average punter took this into account, you wouldn't see them there in July. I don't think you could accuse any of the NZSki.com areas of being dishonest lately either, following the warm rain which badly affected the lower 50-100m of the main runs at coronet, they easily could have pulled snow down from the upper mountain to enable "top to bottom skiing", as they have in the past. But they went with the more sensible option of closing the lifts and concentrating on getting snow made in the crucial areas before opening again. In the mean time, plenty of people are hiking/skinning to the top to get good runs in up there (got some pics emailed to me yesterday). The majority of NZ fields actually have a conditions guarantee in place, whereby if you buy a day pass, and aren't satisfied with conditions, then they will refund you if you return the pass within a given time frame.

International bookings are the real cash cow for ski resorts, and numbers continue to climb. It is a shame that skiing is becoming such an expensive past time, especially considering the history of skiing in NZ, but the reality is, lift operators only have a short period in which they can realistically expect to make money, and profit margins are INCREDIBLY slim.

The marketing of ski holidays within in NZ to NZers is nowhere near as aggressive to the marketing potential overseas customers are exposed to.

The reality is, a majority of ski area customers are forced (workwise/timewise/geographically) to book say one week long holiday a year in which to get some skiing done. No one is forcing these people to book in June or early July, yet they do, and then they complain about poor conditions. If these people took the time to do a little more research and book in August, or September (when accommodation tends to be significantly cheaper) they might enjoy themselves a lot more. Although, I have to admit, some of my best days boarding have been during winterfest weeks of years gone by.

The ones who are conned the most, are the season pass holders, we buy our passes as early as February (with no guarantee of there being any snow), so that the lift companies can get a pre season cash injection. That said, it's yet to backfire on me!

I mean, the timing of the Queenstown winter festival is a direct reflection of season timing. It was initiated in the days before snow making to try and draw people to town in the period BEFORE the skifields opened, traditionally the quietest time of the year... now its one of the biggest weeks of the year in Queenstown, and possibly a contributor to the puiblic expaectation of being able to ski at that time of the year.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

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Atleast both the GFS and ECMRF are in agreement for a cold SW flow across NZ early next week.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by southernthrash »

Yea, still looking like a solid series of three lows will track north to the east of the country (generally) over next week, could get very interesting.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by NZ Thunderstorm Soc »

The ECMWF have a barrier of below 1000 hPa surface pressures over us next week (about time) so should be interesting to see what happens?
...more wind with the cold fronts,more snow for Canterbury, top up for the lakes????

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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by Inny Binny »

Man I wish I could see that 12-hr period between the 6hrly and the 12hrly gfs forecasts. :evil:

Seems like gfs are predicting that same barrier (though I can't see the whole thing).

Another good top up for the lakes is really what we need, it has currently 10% more than what it had a few days ago, so that's good.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by southernthrash »

This is a topic about the 2008 ski season [-X ;) lol - on a quick hydro diversion, I think warm temperatures over the last few days have played a big part too, we've had no heating going in our flat for a week! Well until tonight, when we gave the heat pump another blast.

North Canterbury could do particularly well for snow through next week, the way things a looking I think the whole of the south island and the central plateau and north island ranges will all get reasonable amounts throughout the week.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by sthguy »

The lack of natural snow cover in the south is quite unusual now, even allowing that there are periodic washouts at this time of the year. Below 1500m snow is very scarce. Starting afresh, commencing after this weekend... :-w
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by southernthrash »

It's not too unusual really, the Remarkables are always very thing through June. The unusual part is the prolonged northerly/nw air flow, and subsequent lack of temps suitable for snowmaking.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by melja »

Came on a flight from auk to chch down the alps yesturday and very little snow to be seen, its not laying anywere just sitting under the ridges in thin strips, the talk on the plane was about the lack of snow with many seasoned flyers saying that its the least snow seen at this time of year and even the pilot made a comment about it so i would say its a we bit unusual.
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by sthguy »

Yes I'd say it was at least a 1 in 15 yr bare period for the Winter Solstice. Will be largely fixed by this time next weekend ;)
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

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Mt Hutt last 24hrs has had 45cm taking the base to 90cm.
Whakapapa has had 18cm with 1.35m base now on upper slope. Turoa 15cm last 24hrs with 1.66m base upper slope. Looking good for end of June!
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by southernthrash »

Mt Hutt has recieved a lot of snow lately, although reports suggest it wasn't the nicest to ski, and they seem to be having a lot of trouble with rime on the 6 seater lift this year.

More snow for the rest of the week too, it would seem. Should be a good year and a great spring for Canterbury.

Southern Lakes are doing well too, with all fields having slightly above average snow depth, and cool temps and regular small top ups. Looks like these conditions will continue through to friday.

Should be a good weekend on the Queenstown hills, with the odd light flurry!
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Re: 2008 Ski Season

Unread post by Inny Binny »

Metservice have had a whopping 1m of snow predicted for Mt Hutt for tomorrow for a while now, which really, is probably quite a bit too much for them.
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