Brief snow blast allows Mt. Spokane to open amid historically ‘mellow winter’

A brief blast of cold and some scrappy new snow-moving techniques allowed Mt. Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park to open this past weekend.

And the news gets better.

A weather pattern will move in later this week that could dump up to 6 inches of snow on the ski hill, while warmer temperatures will mean folks living in lower elevations could see a mix of snow, rain and possibly freezing rain, according to the forecast by the National Weather Service.

But the last front, which also brought a large dip in temperatures, gave Mount Spokane just enough to open on Saturday, said general manager Jim van Loben Sels.

“We are going to open seven days a week,” van Loben Sels said. “We will probably only have a third of the runs open, but the snow is awesome.”

The key, at least for Mount Spokane, is planning for thin times, he said.

“Two years ago, we saw a low-snow event. We learned that we can take snow from the parking lot and fill the learning area and the base area with snow so that we don’t have to wait,” van Loben Sels said.

The top of Mount Spokane is about 5,889 feet, but the base is about 4,200 feet, meaning the same storm can produce snow at the top and snow-killing rain at the bottom.

“The bottom quarter of the mountain is not high enough elevation for the early storms,” van Loben Sels said. “I call it harvesting snow. We got a bucket for the front of our snow cat. We rent a dump truck … and move snow to areas that maybe have some valleys.”

Mt. Spokane and other ski resorts have struggled to open as an atmospheric river brought wet and unseasonably warm weather to the region. It dumped feet of snow in the North Cascade Mountains, but presented as rain around Spokane.

“We were prepared to open three weeks ago, but we got the rain event and basically went back to zero,” van Loben Sels said of the base. “Now we leave the snow piled (in the parking lot) the day before we open. We are constantly learning and adapting.”

Historically, Mt. Spokane and other ski resorts open about the second or third week after Thanksgiving.

“Last year, we opened the day after Thanksgiving,” van Loben Sels said.

Part of the work that allowed skiers a chance to hit the slopes this week started six months ago. Crews removed bushes, rock outcropping and tree snags to clear the lower ski runs, he said.

“Because of the low-snow prep work this summer, right now we can run on 6 inches of snow,” van Loben Sels said.

While the upper runs are open, the resort has not yet opened night skiing.

“We want people to see the obstacles that are out there,” he said. “If we had another 5 to 8 inches, it would be ideal. It still won’t open our whole mountain, but it will be much better.”

The forecast may be bringing some relief later this week, said Rachael Fewkes, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

“We’re going to shift into a little more active of a pattern,” Fewkes said. “It looks like mainly mountain snow and maybe a mix of rain and snow in lower elevations depending on the day. It’s pretty uncertain at this point.”

The first snow could come Thursday night into Friday morning, with chances of precipitation growing to 60 to 70%.

“After Friday, we will remain in this more active pattern,” she said. “We’ll have chances of precipitation from 40 to 70% all the way through Monday. It looks pretty light. The peak of Mount Spokane could get about 6 inches of snow from Thursday to Monday.”

The snowpack for Mount Spokane and the nearby Blue Mountains is about 15 to 35% of historic levels for this time of year. It’s a bit better, with snowpacks of 60 to 80% for mountains in North Idaho and the east slope of the Cascades, she said.

“The only area that is showing above normal is in the north Cascades at higher elevations,” Fewkes said.

Meanwhile, the Spokane area has seen higher-than-average rainfall. Since Oct. 1, the Spokane Airport has received just under 7.5 inches of rainfall compared to the average, which is about 5.5 inches, she said.

And the warmer conditions likely will continue.

The weather services’ Climate Prediction Center is forecasting warmer and wetter conditions than normal. Last weekend “is our only taste of winter for the foreseeable future,” Fewkes said. “It’s been a pretty mellow winter.”