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Winter Olympics: Where's the snow?

Posted at 8:34 AM on February 10, 2010 by Paul Huttner (2 Comments)

It's a mad scramble on Cypress Mountain near Vancouver these days.

The usually white slopes are brown due to a lack of snow. Organizers are bringing in snow by the truckload from higher elevations to try and pull of a miracle at the Olympic freestyle venue.

High temperatures in Vancouver have been in the 50s recently, and the unusually balmy weather is forecast to last right through the Olympic Games during the next two weeks. What has fallen from the sky recently has been rain, and not the snow they depsartayely need. Temperatures have even stayed above freezing at night, so they can't make snow either.

olympicvenuemap_e.gif

You can probably blame El Nino for the mild weather in Vancouver. In a twist of atmospheric circulation, Washington D.C. might be a better place to hold the Olympic skiing events than Vancouver this year.

Plenty cold here:

Here in Minnesota we're trading snow for cold. Polar high pressure is settling in over the next few days. That means clear skies with bright sunny days, and cold arctic nights. The fresh snow cover radiates efficiently. That means sub-zero reading will be common at night.

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Our next chance of (hopefully light) snow comes in on Friday and Saturday.

PH

Comments (2)

What are the models saying for the Friday/Saturday event? Will it just be flurries?

Love the blog!

Posted by ML | February 10, 2010 1:19 PM

Hi ML:

The latest runs are pushing the system into western Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas Saturday. Fargo, Pipestone and Sioux Falls may see a few inches of snow, but it looks like the system may completey miss the metro and eastern Minnesota now.

I could use the break from shovelling!

PH

Posted by Paul Huttner | February 10, 2010 4:19 PM

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