Snowmaking off to a fast start, even as Mother Nature takes her time

The snow season in Colorado’s high country is off to a slow start, but snowmaking at the ski resorts? That’s going gangbusters.

As October draws to a close, ski resorts are cranking out the snow due to a combination of the resorts’ annual race to opening day, this year’s unusually compressed window for the right meteorological conditions, and long-standing water supply agreements with Denver Water.

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This year’s race to be the first ski resort to open ended over the weekend, when Keystone opened Saturday for three hours of afternoon skiing, followed by Arapahoe Basin, which opened for a full day of skiing on Sunday. 

Denver Water collects water from across 4,000 square miles of mountain watershed, an area that’s also home to six major ski resorts: Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Frisco Adventure Park, Keystone and Winter Park.

And stream gauges operated by Denver Water act as a proxy measure for snowmaking activity. 

For example, the gauges monitoring streams affected by snowmaking at Winter Park and Keystone showed big overnight dips in recent days, as the resorts diverted water from the streams to their snowmaking equipment to get a head start on the ski season.

“The snow guns are blasting — and we can really see it reflected in those stream gauges,” said Nathan Elder, manager of water supply for Denver Water. “This appears to be one of the bigger starts to snow-making at the resorts as they gear up for opening day.”

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The snowmaking boom can also be credited to something called “wet bulb” temperatures, a concept explained by 9News meteorologist Cory Reppenhagen in a story that aired Oct. 23.

It’s a reference to the impact of evaporative cooling in the dry Colorado air. In essence, the low humidity of the cold and dry air allows resorts to make snow even if the actual air temperature is above freezing. 

“These ‘wet bulb’ conditions that are ideal for snowmaking have come later in the year than usual, so the resorts have had less time to make snow and are going strong now,” Elder said.

Water managers can see the activity in places like gauges on the Snake River, where overnight on Oct. 21, the stream that was flowing at 21 cubic feet of water per second plunged down to 6 cubic feet per second for several hours, then jumped back up to 32 cfs when the snowmaking at Keystone stopped the next day.

Importantly, the snowmaking machines couldn’t work their magic without the water the ski resorts are able to divert from high country streams. And the resorts can do that thanks to agreements with Denver Water that get the most use out of every drop of water.

Denver Water has very senior water rights in Grand and Summit counties, dating back to the 1920s and 1940s, before the ski resorts were open or made snow.

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Agreements between Denver Water and the six ski resorts — Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Cooper Mountain, Frisco Adventure Park, Keystone and Winter Park —allow the resorts to capture and use water for snowmaking, helping get the ski season off to an earlier start than they likely would be able to do otherwise.

The resorts use water that would otherwise get collected and stored in Denver Water reservoirs.

But it all evens out in the end. When the machine-made snow melts, it will flow downstream and wind up in the utility’s reservoirs on its way to customer taps next spring and summer.

Providing water for snowmaking is just one way Denver Water helps improve recreation in our collection system.

Watch a video on how Arapahoe Basin makes snow: 

And those agreements are crucial this year, due to a late start to the snowfall season.

The average amount of snow measured at mountain tracking sites (called SNOTELs) as of Oct. 23 was 0 inches.  There have only been seven other years, in the 46 years since SNOTELs began tracking data in 1979, when the average measurement was zero that late in October.

However, says Elder, do not despair.

A slow October roll-out does not automatically translate to a bad snow year overall.

“A slow start does not mean the peak snowpack in April will be low,” he said. “In some of those years the peak was well above average.”

And forecasts indicate that ‘wet-bulb’ temperatures are looking good for the remainder of this week, meaning more snowmaking will be underway.

So, if you haven’t already, get ready to break out those skis.