Archives for 2008

Yes, we’ve had a precipitation cornucopia today.

The overnight snow (about 6 inches in places on the piste) gave way to rain in the afternoon (and we don’t mind rain, as long as it stops just above resort), then the nice people at snow-forecast.com told us – in fact, as good as promised – that we’d get snow at the weekend.

Well, maybe not in resort, but at mid-station.

So, don’t hold your breath. But do cross your fingers.

OK, I’ve questioned the snow forcasting community a few times, and perhaps been guilty of the odd libel regarding the accuracy of their predictions, but they are very confidently predicting snow right now, and I’m inclined to hope they’re right this time…

Rubbish if it’s cheese. Rubbish if it’s in a ski resort.

But the good news is that snow-forecast say there is loads of snow on the way, although it could be yet another over-exaggeration of almost Oli D-esque proportions…

http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Verbier/6day/bot

A simple formula but it works. You can even improve on it:

cold x (snow + sunshine) – wind = genius.

Which is what we got today.

And if you ever wondered if all those noisy, messy snow cannons worked, have a look at this (underneath the ice and snow it’s the old disused chair lift from the Medran car park, and it got in the way of a snow cannon on overnight):

Well, Oli ‘Pinocchio’ D might not be wading to the boozer through his predicted two feet of snow, but we’ve had a few inches of snow over the last couple of days, and it’s been cold.

And not just cold, but VERY COLD.

And windy, too.

So the fast-melting pistes have solidified (read ‘turned a bit icey’) and you can ski to resort on something other than soupy snow. Which is nice.

And the dirty rumour is that more could be on it’s way (more cold, more snow and more wind).

But if you want me to put a figure on it, you’ll be waiting a very long time. However, buy Oli a beer and he’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.

DO NOT TRUST HIM…

Yup – it’s not the «definite two feet» that certain members of resort staff swore blind would be here. But it’s a start.

And the most important thing is that it’s going to be loads colder. If you believe snow-forecast.com – and you’d be very sensible in deed if you were a little skeptical – we’re in for temperatures down to minus 12 degrees C this afternoon (about minus 19 with the wind chill).

And you don’t need to be Ian McCaskill to realise that those kind of temperatures stop the snow from melting away to nothing.