Apologies for the lack of updates over the last couple of days, have been a little under the weather.
It has been quite a momentous weather system, Our northern neighbours seem to have picked up the lions share of the snow, however Buller hasn’t been left out completely, though the reported snow depths may leave you thinking otherwise. The numbers are scrupulously accurate as reported, however due to the heavy winds that accompanied this snow event there are places with a lot more snow than others, as this photo would suggest:
My rule of thumb has always been the snow depth at the Family Run snow gauge. However this has now been moved due to the snowmaking being installed on Family Run – it is now higher, more near the entrance to Powder Keg so I will have to see how that change affects my ‘calibration’. That said, it is reporting 61cm as of this morning which would indicate a rise of approx 40cm from the recent storm system, which is nothing to sneeze at, despite being less than the other resorts. Yesterday was another example of Buller’s propensity to get shafted during a Westerly flow.
Lorraine Lock from snow-blind has been doing a great job of keeping us all up to date with the conditions this week – If you want a run down of how it all panned out, look through her last half dozen or so posts.
I spoke to my contact who is out on the mountain, at the moment the biggest issue by far is icing. Due to the moist nature of yesterday’s weather the icing on the lifts has been unbelievable, as bad as many people have seen. Summit was not able to be opened today due to the danger of the Howqua chair above the lift queue, and the possibility of shedding hundreds of kilos of ice. Here’s what it looked like:
As of lunchtime today, assessment of further terrain hadn’t really occurred as de-icing was the main priority for ops staff. As they get on top of it we will see what is able to be opened.
In the meantime the temps are cold and the snowmakers are going for broke. As I hear more I will update this post in anticipation of a fun weekend.
Further snow is forecast on Sunday, so the final week of the holidays could be one of the better ones in recent years.
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