| Skiing goes downhill due to lack of snow By FLETCHER DOYLE News Sports Reporter 12/21/2006 | |||||||
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"I'm sitting here five days before Christmas and I'm a little nervous," Kissing Bridge President Mark Halter said by phone Wednesday. "The extended forecast is not encouraging. "I keep checking to see if we're going to get some of that Canadian air, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen soon. That air must be having passport issues." Kissing Bridge was open for three days in early December but has been closed since. All that's left of that snowfall and cold temperatures are two slopes with spotty coverage and some large piles of snow waiting to be spread when temperatures fall. The Christmas week is crucial to snow resorts because it's one of the busiest of the year, generating as much as 25 percent of an area's revenues. "If you lose Christmas week, you can't have a great winter," said Halter, who added that he would be a lot more worried if he hadn't spent so conservatively on facility upgrades during the off-season. "If I had taken on a $1 million debt, I'd be a lot grayer than I am now," he said. Cockaigne also opened for three days before shutting down. The warm weather "ground us to a halt," said spokeswoman Linda Johnson. "There's still snow [on the hill] but we're waiting to see what happens. Grass is growing on people's lawns; it's really disgusting," she said. Holiday Valley and Peek 'n Peak have stayed open since early December, but with reduced terrain. In fact, Holiday Valley held a snowboarding event last weekend and drew about 100 riders. Both areas are benefiting from extensive investments in snowmaking, which is needed because they have hotels and condos rented and they have to offer their customers something. Peek 'n Peak has seven slopes open and Holiday Valley has four. Both are looking at several windows of predicted cold when they can make snow and open trails. Holiday Valley hopes to have as many as 10 trails and five lifts open by the weekend. Making snow in the recent warm weather is expensive, but according to Peek 'n Peak's Chip Day, pounding out snow is well worth it because the cost is minuscule compared with the money that would be lost if people canceled their room reservations. "We're converting an indoor tennis court into a play area for kids. We're trying to help ease the pain if we don't get all 27 slopes open," Day said. "We're making the best of it. We haven't had to cancel a thing." The biggest losers are the employees and businesses that make their money off the ski business. "My face is cringing, it's been bad," said Victoria Brown, owner of the Ellicottville Depot, which depends upon Holiday Valley. "You ask people, "How are you doing?' and everyone's as depressed as the next person." Slow business has Brown calling in fewer cooks and waitresses. The ski areas are not calling in part-time staff members who were trained months ago for the Christmas rush. People who use these jobs to generate extra spending money for the holidays are having to do without. "It's a tough one," Brown said. "I was looking to have a little more money for Christmas shopping. I'll have to rob Peter to pay Paul." No snow means almost no business at Byrncliff Resort, the cross-country and golf area in Varysburg. "It does hurt us if we don't have snow," said manager Scotty Meidenbauer of Byrncliff. "We are on one of the main snowmobile trails in Wyoming County. With no snow, snowmobilers can't take advantage of our food and beverage [service]." Restaurants and gas stations around Byrncliff are similarly affected. Snow generates money in Western New York. Meidenbauer said the presence of 20 golfers on his course Wednesday couldn't make up for the non-existent skiing business. Sales were also down at the Ski Market in Williamsville, according to assistant manager Paul Dzierba. "We're feeling the effects for sure," Dzierba said Tuesday. "When there's no snow here, fewer people come. We're doing well because it's the week before Christmas, but if it was snowing we'd be doing substantially better." Regardless of the current conditions and a 10-day forecast that looks good for holiday travelers, the resorts aren't panicking. They've been through this before. No lesson or racing programs have been canceled; all are still on schedule to begin Jan. 3, after Christmas week, as expected. What the resorts are selling now is hope, one of the messages of the season. The warm temperatures mean that Lake Erie is relatively warm, increasing the odds for a major weather event. A few lake-effect snows would allow the areas to play catch-up, to make up in January and February the business they lost in late December. The situation is similar to that of the Buffalo Bills: "You can still have a good season," KB's Halter said. "You just can't make the playoffs." For more information on Chautauqua Lake Real Estate & Living visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com | ||||||
12/21/2006 - Today may be the official start of winter, but it sure doesn’t look like it as all of Western New York braces for a brown Christmas.
Nowhere is the brown more evident than area ski slopes, where warm temperatures are making it difficult to even manufacture snow.
All slopes at Cockaigne Ski Center in Cherry Creek have been closed since Dec. 10 — only three days after the slopes opened for the season — when temperatures suddenly shot up, according to Linda Johnson, Cockaigne spokeswoman.
Peek’n Peak has eight slopes open, according to the resort’s Web site, though snowmaking weather is expected to return tonight.
Jane Eshbaugh, Holiday Valley Resort and Conference Center marketing director, said three lifts and four slopes were open as of Wednesday and 10 slopes should be open by the weekend, since nighttime temperatures have cooled enough in recent days to make snow. But the lack of snow everywhere else has had at least some impact on business.
‘‘Our customers are a combination of people who drive down for a day and people who come from a little farther away (and stay overnight),’’ Ms. Eshbaugh said. ‘‘When there’s no snow in their backyard, drive-downs tend to drop.’’
According to Ms. Johnson, the busiest time of year for ski resorts is the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and forecasts do have temperatures decreasing after Christmas Day.
‘‘It doesn’t take long to gear up and get right back into it,’’ she said. ‘‘We can sometimes do it in a day and a half. Skiers are resilient. The minute it’s all right, they will be right back out again.’’
Snow enthusiasts can blame the warm weather on strong winds in the jet stream that are keeping cold air from drifting south, says Bill Hibbert, a Buffalo meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
‘‘Normally, this time of year we would expect the jet stream dipping south from Canada, but this year instead it’s coming up from the southwest, putting us right at the boundary of milder air and colder air,’’ Hibbert said. ‘‘It’s very mild for us.’’
The month began with moderate snowfall and temperatures below normal for Western New York, but that changed Dec. 10. Since then, daily temperatures have averaged anywhere between 8 and 20 degrees warmer than normal, according to NOAA data.
But it’s not just the jet stream, Hibbert said — temperatures in the northeast are warmer than general because of El Nino, a periodical weather phenomenon that results from water fluctuations in the Pacific Ocean.
‘‘In a moderate to strong El Nino pattern — and we’re right on the edge of a moderate to strong El Nino pattern — it puts us in a fairly snow-free environment,’’ Hibbert said. ‘‘Snow that falls doesn’t stay.’’
El Nino’s impact varies, according to meteorologists. In Western New York, a weak El Nino pattern only results in warmer temperatures in November and December, while temperatures in January, February and March are typically colder than normal. But a moderate El Nino pattern results in colder temperatures just in February, and a strong El Nino pattern results in warmer temperatures for the entire winter.
According to Hibbert, there is a chance of precipitation Christmas night, and nighttime temperatures are dropping enough that it might snow then — but it won’t come in time for a white Christmas.
The odds are usually against a brown Christmas in Western New York. Buffalo residents are facing their first Christmas without even a trace of snow on the ground in nine years, and only their ninth brown Christmas in half a century, according to NOAA data.
Most snowmobile trails were scheduled to open Dec. 15, but temperatures in the 40s and lower 50s that day — a full 17 degrees above normal — left snowmobilers out of luck. The same went for cross country skiers, but Hibbert said there is at least a little good news for them since unseasonably warm temperatures have stopped Lake Erie from freezing over, which could mean more snow in the long run.
‘‘We still have an opportunity. The flip side is, because it is milder, there is no ice on Lake Erie. So any incursions of cold air across the lake give us the potential for lake effect snow late in the winter,’’ Hibbert said.
