Resort snow and conditions status?

[SSSdave]

What weather and snow, conditions information would you like to be available on resort websites and why? Include possible information you've never seen in resort reports?

How important if at all is such information given your own personal situation? For instance someone living next to a resort can just walk outside to find out whatever while someone living many miles driving distances away will need online information. More Internet oriented persons will also be more interested versus those that are online little or at all.

Consider both current conditions and daily and what/when might be updated?

There are also lift, trail status, and road conditions information of interest but let us just discuss snow and weather. As someone keenly interested in weather over decades I'll add my own comments later. Consider this also as an opportunity to let resort folks on this site understand how such information might be improved.

 

[CalG]

Only the measured snowfall (accurate) over the past 3 days to present means much at all, here in the East. An accurate wind measurement along with peak and base temperatures would be nice.

Trail status is an indication of overall snow conditions. Lift status correlates to winds.

The issue is credibility.

 

[DoryBreaux]

Honesty. That's all.

 

[jmills115]

What weather and snow, conditions information would you like to be available on resort websites and why?
Conditions specific to a lift or area on the mountain. Wind direction, speed, and temps are already listed so that gives you most of the answers of where it will be rougher.
As I’m looking at the Alta site for your third section I see this info is already there. Thanks for your post in pointing me to it.



How important if at all is such information given your own personal situation? 30 minutes from the cottonwood resorts I am going either way.
Canyon Closures are most important to me. Complaints on social media regarding too few updates are increasing with people mad UPD isn’t responding on twitter. I can wait for avalanche control until they are finished. I’m ok turning around going home if needed.
Keeping the canyon safe benefits some of us also.
Mid afternoon closures have been great this season for me personally. Stream of cars down with the last chair being better than the first

Consider both current conditions and daily and what/when might be updated?
Updates happen on the hour for snow totals. With more links and info that I wasn’t using or aware of until tonight, I will watch more than snow totals moving forward
This link is the one I follow and am interested in.
https://utahavalanchecenter.org/alta-monthly-snowfall

 

[SSSdave]

On further thought, yes lift and trail status are very much part of the same useful snow conditions info we may want information on in order to decide whether or not to go skiing, so disregard what I wrote in my opening post about not including that so yes include what you would like to see regarding lift and trail status.

 

[Sibhusky]

I guess I don't really have any issues here. They show closed, open, groomed status for each trail. They show open closed for each lift. They show snow overnight and snow last 24 hours and snow in the last seven days at both the Summit and the base. They have webcams at base and summit locations, most importantly a 360° at the summit. They post updates throughout the morning. They post "rah-rah", but honest condition reports. Today:
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10:00 a.m. Update: It's pretty clear in the village and higher up some fog is clinging to the upper mountain. Visibility is still 4+ chairs almost everywhere though, and there's a nice soft coating of new snow on everything! It definitely feels deeper than 3 inches in some areas on the north side of the mountain.

6:00 a.m. Report: We've had incredible conditions on Big Mountain all week and another dose of snow landed just in time for the long weekend. Wind drifting from the extreme weather in early February may be a factor, but after last night's snow our summit stake is showing 101 inches of settled base depth! All that snow has made for a whole lot of great powder turns and a lot of raw material for grooming into the perfect corduroy.

It's snowing steadily in the village this morning and the forecast calls for continued snowfall: 1-3 inches possible today and another 1-3 inches tomorrow. We'll have every one of our lifts spinning through the holiday weekend to spread riders out to their favorite stashes. Chair 2 and Chair 4 both fire up daily right at 9:00, so head there if you can't wait to start riding!
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A week or so back:

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From early in the season, a snip:
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9:00 a.m. Update: Bring your x-ray goggles if you've got 'em because it's a one-chair visibility day. It's still snowing though, and if temperatures will stay low enough the inches will start to add up.
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And finally:
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Morning snow report from the ski area:

6:00 a.m. Report: Current summit conditions are Arctic, with a temperature of -20° and strong winds. It snowed yesterday and overnight, dropping 4 inches on the summit and 2 in the village. Whether that snow dropped from the sky or blew from the trees I can't say, because it's all been blowing sideways lately.

High winds have scoured some faces and blown in large drifts of snow in other areas. The grooming crew has spent time moving downed trees off of ski runs where possible, but there could be new branches or debris in your favorite route through the trees. The forecast calls for more of the extreme weather that prevented us from running most chairlifts yesterday, so check the updated snow report for possible closures throughout the day.

Whenever the conditions allow, it'll be fun to see how the winds have changed things on the slopes and where the piles of snow have been left behind!

Special Notice: Buckaroo programs will be cancelled today due to extreme weather.

...

I don't really know how much more I'd need.

 

[Bad Bob]

Top and bottom wind temperature and new snow. If it is 30* at the base with an inversion layer, probably don't want to be there.
And current pictures are good.

 

[David]

Just be accurate! Sheet ice or frozen granular on top of sheet ice is not packed powder or machine groomed!

 

[Fuller]

I'm rarely disappointed by the actual vs reported conditions here at WMR. My plan is to go to the mountain every day and make the best of it, no matter what. The report does play a factor in my initial plan for which lift I want to be on early. I made the right decision yesterday morning and was rewarded with a couple of really nice runs before the weekend crowd got out there.