A blast of fresh snow followed by clear blues skies has local skiers and boarders heading for the hills in record numbers.
Cypress, Grouse and Seymour mountains all report ideal conditions, with well over 150 centimetres of new snow falling over the past week.
Lisa Coldwells, a meteorologist for Environment Canada, said a vigorous storm through the Christmas weekend brought a significant amount of snow to the North Shore mountains. “All totalled right now the various ski hills have a lot of snow up there,” she said. “You’re looking at amounts of snow that we certainly didn’t see last year.”
Coldwells’ forecast for the coming week is modified Arctic air coming from the Interior resulting in continued clear conditions and cool temperatures – a weather pattern that should last until Jan. 3.
On Tuesday, Mount Seymour reported receiving 157 cm of fresh snow over the last seven days, giving the skill hill a 315-cm total at the summit.
“Fantastic, soft-packed groomed snow and loads of sunshine, minus two, absolutely perfect,” said Simon Whitehead, Seymour’s marketing and communications manager, about the current conditions.
It’s a major bounce-back season for the North Shore ski hills that were hit by poor weather conditions last winter.
“It’s absolutely spectacular,” said Whitehead, calling the past week a “banner Christmas.”
All the mountain’s runs are open and the current forecast should keep the hills busy over the Christmas school break.
“Wall to wall sunshine until Tuesday (Jan. 5). The forecast is blue sky,” said Whitehead.
With so many snow revellers flocking to its slopes, Seymour is now offering free shuttle bus service from Parkgate Community Centre and Lonsdale Quay until Jan. 3.
Grouse Mountain is also celebrating the pristine winter snow conditions.
“We have 369 centimetres of snow so far this season so the conditions are fantastic,” said Julia Grant, communications manager for Grouse.
“The snow is the some of the best we’ve seen in a while.”
And skiers and snowboarders have been taking full advantage of the conditions.
Grant said Monday was the busiest winter day in the mountain’s history.
With all those visitors, the mountain has added a free shuttle bus that runs from Prospect Road up Capilano Road to the mountain’s parking lot.
Joffrey Koeman, Cypress Mountain’s director of sales and marketing, says it’s rare for the mountain to have all its runs open before Christmas, but thanks to this year’s stellar conditions they have been able to.
“(There’s been) almost 16 feet of snowfall this season which is fantastic,” he said. “Everyone’s grinning ear to ear.”
Coldwell’s forecast for the start of next week, when kids return to school, is a gradual weather shift, with the cold and sunny period ending and more “typical normal conditions” starting.
That means rain for most of the North Shore, “although it’s not warm enough to rain on the tops of the mountains,” said Coldwells.
So more snow could be in store for the North Shore mountains.
But the spectre of El Nino - the weather pattern that usually brings warmer winter temperatures to the Lower Mainland - lingers.
“It’s a strong El Nino and it’s continuing to hold, but we don’t generally see the effects of El Nino start to get close to Western Canada until about mid-January into February,” said Coldwells. “It’s more of a later winter phenomenon.”
Coldwells said when that happens, the North Shore can expect to see milder temperatures.
