Snow-lacking season challenges Winnipeg skiers

A season of very little snow is causing challenges for Winnipeg skiers, according to local experts.

“Every few years we have a year where there’s less snow. I’d say on average we’re at less than half of what we usually have.” said Murray Carter, president of Red River Nordic ski programs. “And we usually get a snowstorm around Christmas time, and we don’t have that yet, so that’s kind of a downer.”

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Carter says he and his family are avid cross-country skiers but the snow so far is grainy and icy. This bump in the road has forced them to look at alternate locations, such as the La Salle River, when the ice is thick enough.

Weather Expert Bruce Johnson says Winnipeg is unlikely to see long cold or snowy spells this season.

“With an El Nino pattern, you don’t get much of the cold air, you don’t get the air from the northwest,” Johnson said. “And if you don’t have much snow – and that’s part of the reason we don’t get much snow – when you don’t have much snow you don’t generate the really cold air.”

These weather concerns have led to Winnipeg’s Windsor Park planning on manufacturing snow by next season.

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“It just has to be in the negatives, and then you can make snow. So hopefully in the future, we’ll be able to have skiing pretty much in November,” said Carter. “You may not be able to do the traditional ones, like Windsor Park, Birds Hill Park, Falcon Lake, all that yet, but you can try different things.”

Carter adds there’s still time for the season to improve, and just 10 to 20 more centimetres of snow would create excellent conditions. His daughter Lucie says she still enjoys going out.

“There’s not a lot and it’s pretty icy, but it’s still good,” she said.

— With files from Global’s Katherine Dornian