The upward slope by Sean Batty
MAMMOTH SNOWFALL
In California a huge April storm brought heavy snow to the famous skiing resort of Mammoth, smashing previous snowfall records.
At the end of last week resort officials said that to date and astounding 632 inches
(16 metres) of snow had fallen since October. The previous record was set back in 1992/93 when 617 inches of snow was reported to have fallen on the resort from October to early spring. The average snowfall in a typical season is around 400 inches, making this years snowfall some 200 inches more than usual.
The mountain resort is well know for its sunny days during the spring months, however, more than a centimetre of snow has fallen on 24 days out of the last month, which is rare.
Latest reports state that around 660cm of snow is lying on the upper slopes and around 600m on the lower slopes. This doesn’t even compare with the resort of Heavenly, which lies on the Nevada/California border with a comparatively paltry 440cm on its upper slopes.
A HIGHLAND TREAT
Coming closer to home, Scotland, has been treated to a real Highland treat with heavy snowfalls having fallen on the mountains in the last several weeks bringing a fantastic ‘end’ to the season.
This weekend (8th and 9th of April) all Scottish ski centres were open for business, which nowadays seems a rarity.
A spokesman at the Nevis Range claimed that they have had the best April snowfall since 2001, while at the Glencoe Ski Centre there was said to be over two feet of snow on the upper slopes, the manager went on to say: “I believe we are having one of the best seasons for spring snow for at least 10 years if not 50.
The recent snowy weather, which begun back in March, has been great news for the country after a very poorly January and early February which brought very little snowfall.
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