It’s a classic southern Alberta winter experience — snow, sun, more snow and more sun. A flip flop of temperatures.
And while it’s warming up over the next week, we’re in for another bout of cold in November that will bring some more average winter temperatures.
That’s according to Environment Canada Warning Preparedness Meteorologist Justin Shelley, who says southern Alberta will see an upcoming pattern change.
“We have seen some trends in recent weeks, show a bit of a cooling trend for the late part of fall and early part of winter,” said Shelley.
“Whereas at the end of the summer in the early part of the fall, this time period was forecast to be a bit more warmer than normal. We’re seeing those come back down a bit.”
Which is good news for the Castle Mountain Ski Resort.
As Cole Fawcett, Sales and Marketing Manager at Castle says, they’re gearing up for another winter.
Fawcett says that they were able to start making snow a week earlier than normal because of the colder weather, while ensuring machine-made snow is packed down in priority areas to create a good base layer.
“We see some warmer, more seasonable weather coming after this weekend, where we probably won’t be to make snow for a while,” said Fawcett, “so you know we’re prepared to roll with the punches as we do every pre-season period.”
Last year, Castle opened on Nov. 26, the earliest the ski resort has ever welcomed guests to the mountain, and they are optimistic for this year’s opening day on Dec. 1.