I see snow

Ooh we are finally being held in winters cold White embrace.
Bingo

Are we heading for another ice age, I hope so.

Now I don’t want to get involved in the global warming debate, but having an obvious interest in trying to predict snowfall some understanding of how the earths’ temperature fluctuates would be useful. Which means you come across both sides of the argument quite frequently. The current sticking point seems to be is how much influence the sun plays in the warming of the earth. One side says very little compared to manmade influence the other says it has total influence and man is but negligible in the equation. 

Now as said I don’t want to get involved but one thing that both sides agree on is that the energy being received from the sun has been waning as it passes through the low point of its 11 year cycle. However there is a lot of argument that this downward trend in solar activity is going to be more distinctive and last far longer.

 

The question is, what does that mean to us who look forward to cold times?

UV view of the sun

Dr Scaife from the UK met office says that the UV output from the sun (which varied greatly with overall solar activity) does have an effect on over all winter temperatures, but not in a direct way. The UV is absorbed by and thus affects the temperature of the Stratosphere. When there is less UV the Stratosphere is cooler, the effects of which percolate down through the atmosphere, changing wind speeds, including the jet stream that circles the northern hemisphere. This change or kink in the Jet stream blocks warm westerly winds reaching Europe whilst allowing in cold winds from Arctic Siberia. The key point in his argument is that although this causes Europe and North America to be colder, other areas are warmer as it is only a change in the circulation of the air not a dramatic change in over all climate.

The Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (source) Satelitte

One of the problems is that data on the UV output from the sun is hard to measure from the earths’ surface and accurate readings have only been taken since the launch of the source satellite in 2003. Observations and analysis of the first few years of output from source seemed to raise more questions than answers concerning a trade off between UV radiation absorbed and energy at visible wavelengths that reach the earth. Mike Lockwood from Reading University thinks these readings could be particular to this phase of solar activity, marking the end of a phase of high output and a transition into a less active phase.    

“It’s now emerging that the ‘space age’ has been a ‘grand maxima’ (the sun oscillated between grand maxima and minima), so my view is that the sun is due to fall out of this and into a ‘grand minima’. So I would not be surprised if in 50 years’ time we find ourselves in conditions like the ‘Maunder Minimum’ associated with the ‘little ice age’.”

Professor Lockwood also says that although short term changes in solar output may not affect the global big picture, they can have a powerful impact on local weather patterns, particularly over Europe and Eurasia, as was suggested by Dr Scaife.

Sunspot as compared to the earth

Since 1990 research by the National Solar Observatory in Arizona has been monitoring the decline in sunspot activity. Sunspots are the Harbingers of the magnetic activity on the sun that lead to the ejection of particles towards the earth, via flare events and coronal mass ejections. Their research finds that the magnetic field strength of sunspots has been declining, and if it drops too low, a level that could be reached by 2016 if the current trend continues, then there will not be enough for sunspots to form at all. A situation that has been seen before, between 1645 and 1715, a time otherwise known as the Maunder Minimum.

Well no matter what you believe mans effect on the earths’ temperature is. It is looking likely that we have some cold winters ahead. 

For High or Low

Living in Morzine is amazing; something that often sparks a bit of jealousy from our guests as we return them to the airport after another great snowboard holiday. 

But over the last few years I have been struggling to persuade a few friends, who I know from doing seasons, that it is the town to settle down in. It has all that other purpose built resorts have to offer as well as a great permanent community and all the facilities of a long standing town and not just being for the purposes of the tourism it attracts.  

The reason I have been struggling to persuade them has come down to the belief that “it’s too low and doesn’t get the snow”. Well having spent a lot of time in the mountains over the years I have not only come to realise that big generalisations are difficult to apply, but in particular the common belief that higher resorts get more snow, isn’t always true and I’m glad to say that Avoriaz at the heart of the Portes du Soleil, neighbouring Morzine, is one resort that proves that.

Avoriaz has the highest average snow fall of any French resort. A fact that is attributed to it’s being situated further north and proximity to Lake Geneva offering up the extra moisture.

If we look at just last year, one of the worst in over 30 years, a time that has seen many a travel writer run to the cliché in the approach to this season. Avoriaz had a higher average snow depth and more open slopes than other higher resorts popular with the British skier.

Average snow depth cm:

                                Nov 2010             Dec        Jan         Feb        Mar        Apr 2011

Avoriaz                 12                           83           112         110         110         47

Val D’Isere          14                           61           86           87           101         59

Meribel                5                              55           59           57           78           46

This coupled with a large number of tree lined pistes, afforded to a slightly lower altitude means that the resort will have more open lifts on bad weather days. All in all, a winning combination.

I know where I’ll be staying and on those heavy snow days (that we are going to get loads of this year)  I’ll be thinking of all those poor folk stuck inside at high altitude, whilst I’m shredding the trees.

Heavy snow winter predicted for Morzine (according to the oldies, and they would know)

Predicting the weather always seems a fickle art, even for a country such as ours, that often seems obsessed by what we are about to receive. The further forward you are trying to predict it seems sometimes more a guessing game than a science and even then they can only go into trends rather than the details of particular weather topics, like amount of snowfall.

Those of us, whose livelihoods are greatly influenced by the amount of snow that will fall, can be found listening to any theory we can find to give us a clue as what the coming season will bring. But for generations past, before the advent of modern prediction techniques and satellite imagery, many rules existed which we now know to be based on sound principles although only born out of observation and the passing of knowledge down the generations.

Take for instance the clichéd weather prediction “Red sky at night Sheppard’s delight. Red sky in the morning Sheppard’s warning.” We now know a red sky is seen when looking at a high pressure system with dry air stirring dust particles, which cause the sky to look red. If you are seeing this at sunset, as prevailing jet streams and weather systems tend to move from west to east and the sun sets in the west, the dry air is moving towards you. Conversely in the morning if you see the red sky and dry air to the east, it has past you by and the next weather pattern to come your way will be a moisture carrying low pressure. This same theory can be easily applied to seeing rainbows, as they a formed by looking though moist air, to predict the onset or passing of rain.

Now currently the talk about town is very optimistic (although not all residents view it as a good thing) for a very heavy and early snow year.  I have heard this based upon many theories from the bushiness of squirrels tails, thickness of onion skins, number of leaves on the Gentianes flower to over breeding of mice and bees. But the main thing that sells these theories to me this year is the consistency with which all the old people in town enthuse that it is going to be a heavy snow winter despite which method they use.

For myself I have witnessed, the redness of the trees and onset of autumn 3-4 weeks earlier than normal, the farmers taking their animals to lower pastures earlier than normal and a whole heap of positive thinking as I’ve ordered myself a split board this year and it won’t be much use without loads of fresh powder.

Fingers crossed. 

We love Mervin too.

The summer isn't officially over here (well lifts close tomorrow), but already the hype about next season is truly building. With the Art of Flight putting insane powder in the faces of the mainstream and giving every snowboarder I know an insane itch, new product is dropping into store and I just read my first product guide. This isn't the most up to date information as it's from the july edition of Onboard, but they did their test of next seasons boards last January.
As I'm sure you can imagine there is a lot of boards to choose from (or test) these days, but Onboard took their pick of the bunch for a more in depth review and from those they chose their top 10.
The top 10 was interesting in some of the brands that the testers chose, as well as the lack of some of the bigger names normally associated with these things, however LibTechs TRS and Travis Rice as well as Gnu's Parkpickle and Roxy's Envi all made the top 10. Go Mervin and power to the banana, or is that power banana, or C2 power banana. Either way they obviously work.
Incidentely  with the exception of the Roxy we have them all to test at the chalet.
Now we all need is snow, have you heard the one about sun spots, more on that later.

Missing the snow already

Summer season hasn't even started yet and I am already getting itchy for some snow timw. Doesn't help getting little up dates formt he Brain Farm crew as to what they have been doing and to what we can expect from them this autumn.
If you're not familiar with Brain farm they are the lot behind That's it that's all, from a couple of years ago and thier new release The art of Flighthas gotta be the most eagerly anticipated snowboard movie in a good while. Check the trailer if you don't beleive me.
http://www.artofflightmovie.com/#ooid=VnbGoxMjq2IzGmoavTVBskp9uSJBHEyN

There is more news and footage of what they got upto at a private end of season park shoot, oooh the life.

http://espn.go.com/action/snowboarding/news/story?page=Brain-farm-aspen

Enjoy

I had a dream

Since I started snowboarding some 22 years ago it has played a heavy influence on my life. The culmination of which lead my to living in Morzine running a small chalet company that fullfilled my ideals of quality and service as well as allowing me to ride and build a good relationship with our guests. But although I am proud of what we have achieved with Mountain Mavericks, it never quite fullfilled the dream of being for riders, devoted to those who live for the mountain, the shred or the stoke. Whatever you want to call it those that understand what I'm saying will know what I mean.
It is with great pleasure this year that we are launching RideWell Lodge. The catered holiday experience for those who love the mountains, the experience, the riding and would like a bit of the lifestyle. There are many rider driven companies offering holidays, but very few (if any) that bring to it the experience of providing the quality service we have built over the 10 years of Mountain Mavericks.
Ultimately though I am looking forward to getting more shredding with friends old and new.