Snow on mountain peaks definitely a skier’s high

Workers at Silver Mountain Resort were busy Tuesday afternoon preparing for a groundbreaking ceremony for an indoor/outdoor water park.

But not far away, lift operators were brushing snow from gondola cars that had arrived fresh from the top of the mountain, lobbing snowballs at each other.

“When you get your first snowfall, people’s eyes definitely turn from a summer to a winter focus,” said Stephen Lane, director of sales and marketing at Silver Mountain.

A white frosting atop many of the region’s mountains is a traditional signal of the change of seasons. Forecasters say autumn has reached the region, and there’s probably no turning back.

“Fall is definitely here,” said Bob Tobin, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Cold weather looks to be the norm for a few weeks, he said, and high temperatures in the 70s and 80s might be hard to find.

“There always a possibility that we’ll get a day or two in there that are real nice,” Tobin said, “but we don’t see any real big ridges going in.”

Long range forecasts show a winter with slightly warmer than normal temperatures and average precipitation. It’s the best outlook for snow in the last three years, which saw low snow totals.

This season there is neither a strong El Nino nor La Nina warming or cooling the waters of the Pacific, which can have an effect on weather patterns throughout the country.

“We’re looking for a winter that’s a little more close to what we’d usually see in this part of the country,” Tobin said. “We should get a little bit more valley snow and hopefully a lot more mountain snow than we’ve seen in the last couple years.”

Ice hasn’t reached the lake valley floors of Coeur d’Alene, but workers at Les Schwab Tires have seen a steady number of requests for snow tires.

“A lot of these people are really convinced we’re going to have a really bad winter,” said assistant manager Jason Lee during a break between one of 40 tire changes Tuesday. “You get a lot of these old-timers that live out in the woods that read the ‘Farmers’ Almanac,’ and hey, half the time they’re right.”

Idaho allows studded tires for seven months, from Oct. 1 through April 30, but drivers to the west of the state line will have to wait. Washington allows studs from Nov. 1 until March 31.

Often the first wet rains and snows of winter mean the end of summer’s fires, said Jennifer Smith, a public affairs officer for the National Interagency Fire Center. The Valley fire burning near Stanley, Idaho, is contained and will simply spin its wheels within the fire lines until the snow falls, she said.

Officials with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources believe stumps inside the 890-acre Martin Road fire south of Kettle Falls will burn until the snow puts them out.