A Message from Chuck

Chuck's Page

By: Chuck Shepard

May 8, 2006

Last November I attended a very informative and as it turned out very accurate winter weather symposium. When the 05-06 season started I reported the conclusion of that meeting which was that the weather was going from a warm and dry phase to a cold and wet phase. This season the audience was told would be a transition year which would mean an average winter season overall. Hoodoo’s season started almost on time (the first weekend in December), but we had a rather wet and warm month in December which caused us some concern. However, true to the state meteorologists' predictions our winter season did indeed turn out to have an average snowfall with as it turned out, an above average precipitation (which means that the snow in the mountains is holding a lot of water).

The exciting message for you as snow hounds is that we are still in that transition to more snow and we at Hoodoo are working on getting ready to plow a lot of snow next year. Kyle Dittmer, state hydrologist and meteorologist, who uses sun spots as part of his arsenal to determine the future weather has predicted that next season will be the “Mother of all snow years!” (Kyle, if you feel that I in any way have misrepresented your statements, please let me know). The sun spot cycle which helps Kyle also predicted the low snow year in the 04-05 season.

On the longer term prediction George Taylor, state meteorologist, has found that in spite of “Global Warming” our state temperatures are actually dropping, which again is good news. Although, there is a new theory (this did not come from George Taylor) that has given many scientists some alarm, called “Global Dimming”. This theory says that even though greenhouse gases may be causing warming, particulates in the air are causing less sunshine to hit the earth which causes global cooling. Together this has prevented as much warming as predicted by the “Global Warming” theory. Ironically as we clean up the particulate level without fixing the greenhouse gases we are actually doing a lot of harm to the future snowfall at Hoodoo (NOT GOOD). I am sure that some of you are laughing thinking that I am kidding about this last part, but I’m not. I am not pretending to know much about environmental problems, I am only reporting about current theory as it could affect Hoodoo.

Bottom line here is that the short term predictions are good, the medium predictions are questionable and the long term predictions are terrible unless we get it together environmentally. Next year though sounds exciting. We are looking forward to a great year with you. If you do not yet have your season passes for next year, we are expecting to start a fall sale in September. Our “normal” season should start by the first weekend in December as it did this year and end the first weekend in April. (This year we went a little longer than normal). If the weather hits as is now predicted we actually expect to open on November 24, 25 and 26 for Thanksgiving Weekend with our permanent opening on December 1 or 8, and be open through April 8, 2007 . See you next season.

See you on the slopes,

Charles Shepard (Click on my name to contact me)
President of Hoodoo Family Recreation

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