We had nearly 100 people show up for the Thriller Snow Dance, which is a bit shy of what we needed to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. But one thing is for sure, the "Thriller" snow dance will bring amazing snow to Utah for the upcoming season. We are confident next year we will make it in the books. Plan on being there!

In the meantime, check out the first-ever "Thriller" Snow Dance:

I wanted to show you an alternative to throwing old lumber in the landfill.  This would a perfect method for recycling waste lumber from construction.

We fired up our snowmaking for the first time this morning, a sure sign that the 2009-2010 winter season is just around the corner. Temperatures dropped into the 20's early this morning and we were able to start making snow on the majority of the lower mountain including Homerun (from the top of PayDay down), PayDay run, First Time and Pick 'N Shovel. 

Looking at the current forecast, there is a cold front moving in to the Park City area tomorrow night bringing cold temperatures and SNOW. It should be a wintry week! 

Brian McInerney, a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City, has been kind enough to share his insights into the coming winter with us, here are his thoughts:

The 2010 winter season is closing in fast, and the question on everyone's mind is what type of winter will we experience this year?  If you look at the winter of 2009, the weather was ed off.  There was very little average conditions.  We started late with snowfall only starting around mid-December, with copious snowfall through early January.  This followed a dry spell for some time with heavy snows in February.  Once we got comfortable with an adequate snowpack, it started melting off in early March, only to be followed by record setting snowfall in late March.  Spring conditions were somewhat normal, only to be followed by record June rainfall near 400 - 500% of normal.  If anyone could have predicted that type of weather pattern accurately, they would be wealthy by now.

As far as the conditions setting up 2010, we are currently in a Moderate El Nino phase. El Nino looks at the sea surface temperature of the Equatorial Pacific Region.  Typically, when this area of the globe produces warmer than average sea surface temperatures, the Desert southwest becomes cooler and wetter, and the Pacific northwest b  For Utah, Southern Utah has a better than average chance of becoming cooler and wetter with the warmer sea surface temps.  Unfortunately, as Northern Utah lies in between these two areas, the long range forecast skill is very weak.  In reality, any forecast that goes out beyond 5 - 7 days has very little science to back it up.  In essence, we'll have to look out 5 - 7 days ahead, and hope for the best.  It would be nice to have a long range forecast that has skill, but that's life.  Let's hope the switch stays on lots longer than it's turned off.

Let's hope that switch stays on and thanks for your time Brian!

Looking for a great winter job?

Want to work for one of the top winter resorts in the country?

Then, be sure to stop by our Job Fair this Thursday from 3pm-6pm at the Legacy Lodge.

See www.parkcitymountain.com/jobs for more details or to apply online if you are not able to make it to our Job Fair!

Winter has reared it's head a few times here in the Park City area and I got a great look at it in this photo that Dodd, one of our lift mechanics, shot and sent to me yesterday morning. He took this at the top of our Jupiter Lift and said that it looks like this snow will most likely stick through spring...we'll be skiing and riding this soon.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but, if you haven't picked up your 2009-2010 Park City Mountain Resort season pass, you've got until this Thursday to buy or renew! Our season pass sales office is open daily from 10am - 5pm, stop by and visit them, they're located in the plaza level in the main base area or call them at 1-800-222-PARK (7275).

Just a friendly reminder that there's just one more week left to purchase your Park City Mountain Resort season pass at the early season rates. Our winter season is fast approaching and we've already seen a couple of snow storms blow through. There's no snow sticking down here at the base, we are scheduled to open for the season in just over a month, on November 21, 2009 with our closing date is set for April 11, 2010.

Actually, it's a bit odd to be writing about winter as we're planning to run our summer operations for another 10 days - our summer operations closing date is Sunday, October 18th. So come come on by this weekend, pick up your winter season pass and then ride the alpine coaster or alpine slide!

I attended the Save our Snow II meeting this past Wednesday (in a snowstorm) and came away with a great sense of community and vision. Dr Gallo's presentation on climate change and the oceans was an entertaining and enlightening piece, the Stratus Consulting Park City study was very interesting and I'm going to sign up on www.parkcitygreen.org this weekend.

If you weren't able to make the meeting, you can download the study from Saveoursnow.net and I've embedded three of the videos that were produced for the meeting below:

We'll be getting our first taste of flakes for the 2009-10 season in the next few hours, at least that's what the National Weather Service is saying. Their forecast shows white for tomorrow, see the graphic forecast image to the right and take a look at all that dark blue that's right over us here in Park City. Woohoo!

It's good timing that the first winter storm of the season is blowing in tomorrow (September 30), as it is also the date for Save our Snow II, a community-wide meeting at the Eccles Center, here in Park City, at 7pm. Tickets are free and a few are still available (as of this afternoon) by stopping at the Eccles Center Box Office or by calling 655-3114. It will be a very interesting evening of discussion about climate change, how it could impact Park City and what we each can do about it. And, if you can't make it to the event tomorrow, please join their Save our Snow Facebook Fan Page or follow their Twitter account for lots of great information. [Update 8:30am on Sept 30 - all tickets have been distributed, but KPCW says to show up and there should be room for everyone.]