Warm temperatures threaten to snowball ski season
Ski Santa Fe plans to open 5 trails Saturday
In his 30 years at Ski Santa Fe, Turk Higgins has seen everything. And in recent days, nothing.
“We’ve had some lean years, but this is crazy,” said Higgins, a snowmaker and groomer from Santa Fe.
“This should all be snow cover,” he said, just after leaving the pump house that drives the ski area’s snowmaking equipment.
In his worn leather gloves and buckled snowboarding helmet, Higgins is ready to work. But with unusually high temperatures, only so much man-made snow can be produced.
Residents who saw snow patches along Hyde Park Road on Tuesday as a sign that conditions were about to turn a snowy corner might still need to pump the brakes. The National
Weather Service outlook on the season still points toward dry conditions, even as snow-making machinery spews out tons of man-made snow each day.
Ski Santa Fe plans to open Saturday, but out of its 83 trails, just five will be available to skiers and snowboarders.
Taos Ski Valley is in the same boat. While it opened Nov. 23, warmer temperatures and a lack of snow forced the resort into a weekend-only schedule, Public Relations Coordinator Skylar Kraatz said. Only two of the 111 trails currently are available, but hopes are to open daily beginning Dec. 8. The resort received 4 inches of snow this week, Kraatz said.
“Compared to the ’80s and ’90s, these seasons are slowly shrinking,” said Michael Lindenbaum, Ski Santa Fe’s snow maintenance director. “We open later, close earlier.”
Lindenbaum said the afternoon temperature of 28 degrees is well above average for the season and is concerning because at 28 degrees, the snow guns will start to make rain, not snow.
“Nighttime temperatures should be in the teens,” he said, “and we haven’t seen the teens yet.”
National Weather Service meteorologist Andrew Church said that with weak La Niña conditions, precipitation likely will be average for the Santa Fe area, but snowfall might be low. Santa Fe may see a light snowfall Thursday, but Church said that “it would bring an inch or two at best.”
Forecasters expect another storm system to move through the region Monday, bringing with it as much as 6 inches to 12 inches of snowfall to Ski Santa Fe, Church said.
“The ski business is a risky business,” Higgins said, heading back to work. “But I don’t have optimism or pessimism. I take it a day at a time.”
Despite the snow-makers’ worries, management at Ski Santa Fe is putting on an optimistic face.
“It’s a slower start than we were hoping for, but it’s still early season,” said Joe Turiciano, operations manager at Ski Santa Fe. The ski resort has only received 2 inches of measurable snowfall since Nov. 1, but Turiciano isn’t disappointed with the numbers.
“Early season,” said Turiciano. “Those are the key words. Anything can happen in New Mexico or the Southwest.”