Andrea, I am glad to hear you are enjoying the conditions. Right now the skiing is pretty good, and I had a great day myself. I did do a run down the ‘Colouir Extreme’ which is pretty rocky up the top, and overall not really worth it. I had some nice turns in the middle, but at the bottom is was kind of ‘chunky’ snow again.

Ali, I am sure if it is cold enough to make snow, they will – but only in the high traffic zones.

Oppi, No idea about the weather next week, let alone next month….

Tootie, it isn’t that hot, in fact it was kinda cold today with isolated pockets of snowfall.

Simon, yes there is enough base for the ski outs to the village to survive a week or two of high temps – although if you look at the temps, the valley is staying quite cool – due to the trapped cold air mentioned earlier.

Okay, now I am really curious. According to snow-forecast.com, the temperature is going to drop tonight, but the freezing level is rising?? How is this possible…?

I know it sounds dorky, but we joined a group tour of Blackcomb today, and I can’t recommend it enough for those new to WB. We went all over the mountain, and saw so much more than we would ever have on our own. We joined the “fast” intermediate group with a guide named Reno, who kept us going at a good clip. He seemed to know everything about the Coastal Range; geology, climate, anthropology, etc. We skied the Horstman Glacier, and peeked over the edge of Couloir Extreme for a hair-raising view.

We had started the day back at 7th Heaven, which was super smooth but a little icy from yesterday’s melt/freeze. Still, it was a fun & gentle way to start the day. I found that the snow on the north side of Blackcomb was better quality, and there was even a little dusting of powdery snow that improved conditions even more.

Again, we had a GREAT time, even with the relatively mild temps. The bottom of the mountain was a mess though; tomorrow we’re definitely taking the gondola down at the end of the day.

Still haven’t made it over to Whistler Mountain; we keep hearing that it isn’t as good over there, condition-wise. Maybe we’ll ride the Peak-t0-Peak over and back… if anyone has suggestions, that would be great!

http://text.weatheroffice.gc.ca/forecast/city_e.html?bc-86

The Environment Canada “Alpine Recreational” forecast for the same day gives a alpine high of +9.

http://www.weatheroffice.com/scripts/nphshowarf.pl?html&1010.txt

How on earth can both reports be accurate, or am I missing something…?

I agree with all the other comments – this is the one site I check back with every couple of days to see what the snow’s like in Whistler.

I’m coming out there the second week of February. I know it may be premature, but do you have an idea of what the forecast is calling for in terms of snow/temps in Feb?

In a strange sort of way I’m looking forward to skiing in warm sunshine when I get out on the 20th. It’s definitely not what I expected!! It looks like it’s dropping below freezing at night though, do you think they’ll get the snow cannons on to freshen up the runs?

Today was our first one here, and we spent a beautiful, sunny day skiing off the 7th Heaven chair, with spectacular views in every direction. Despite some melting when the sun came out, and sloppy slush on the last run, down toward the bottom, we managed to have lots of fun!

This is the wiki for the ‘pineapple express’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Express
Notice how the water makes a straight line up from Hawaii, and now look at
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/nepac/loop-wv.html
and you will see the 2 lows and 1 high still moving the weather ‘around’

I remember the 04/05 season, all we got was rain during January, and a lot of it. Now that was a pineapple express during a La Nino’?’ year.

I am wondering what that big Low south-west of Alaska is going to do/bring …. that may bring a ‘pineapple express’ to us ….. lets hope not.