Facebook Twitter LinkedIn The Maroon Bells, a pair of Colorado 14ers, can be seen from the top of Long Shot at the Snowmass ski resort on sunny days. Climate change is leading to bigger variability in weather patterns, including big swings in extremes from one season to the next. When it comes to snow and the ski industry, that’s a problem. The ski season is well underway across the Rocky Mountains, and some places have seen more snow than others. Snowpack is hovering around the average for this time of year throughout the Mountain West. At the I-70 resorts in central Colorado, like Vail and Beaver Creek, SNOTEL sites are showing snowpack between 95% and 123% of normal. At Independence Pass near Aspen, the snowpack is 95% of normal, and in Gunnison County, Schofield Pass near Crested Butte is at 86% of normal. In southwest Colorado, some areas have snowpack much closer to normal, like Red Mountain Pass near Telluride, showing 111% of normal, but other areas sit well below average, like the Mancos SNOTEL site, which is measuring 33% of normal. Near Moab, Utah, the Lasal Mountain site measures 115%. In Near Jackson, Wyoming, the Phillips Bench SNOTEL site is showing 74% of normal snowpack and Granite Creek reads 95%. The Sierra Nevada Mountains in California have already had lots of snow this winter, with some resorts near Lake Tahoe measuring up to 174% of normal snowpack. There’s evidence that human-caused climate change is impacting the U.S. ski industry. A 2023 study shows that between 2000-2023, the ski season has shortened by between 5.5 and 7.1 days. Researchers say a changing climate makes it hard for the ski industry to plan for the season the way they once did. Andrew Schwartz, director of the UC Berkeley Central Sierra […]