Boler Mountain preparing for winter season, as London wakes up to thin blanket of snow

It’s London’s first glimpse of winter weather.

A thin layer of snow blanketed the city overnight, bringing with it temperatures hovering around 0 C Tuesday. It’s unclear how long the white stuff will stick around, but 980 CFPL weather specialist John Wilson says the city might get snow squalls throughout the day as winds turn northeast.

Temperatures will dip to -5 C. The coldest air of the season is on its way too, with the windchill set to dip down between -10 and -15 by Wednesday.

London will see temperatures rise just above freezing towards the end of the week, but more snow is expected over the weekend.

Over at the ski hill at Boler Mountain, officials have their fingers crossed for those colder temperatures.

Manager Marty Thody says the snow-making guns turn on automatically when temperatures hit -2 C.

“We more or less need about 150 hours of production time to open up,” said Thody.

Throughout the week and upcoming weekend, Thody hopes for between 40 and 50 hours of snow production to get things started. They’ve spent the last few days getting the snow guns in place, and doing last minute tune-ups on equipment.

“We put some new installations in on the west hill, to try and increase production out there and be able to introduce it earlier to our guests,” he explained.

“Nobody wants to open more than we do.”

There are about 380 staff at Boler Mountain during the winter months. A couple hundred positions are still available in food services, lift operations, rental shops, and customer service, and Thody said they’d be hosting a job fair Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.