source: Transworld Business
Heavy rains and warm temperatures in Vancouver forced operators of Cypress Mountain, the host of the Olympic halfpipe event, to close the hill this week in an effort to safe guard the snow for the event. Cypress officials remain confident that there is plenty of snow for the event.
According to the Canadian Press:
Tim Gayda, the vice-president of sport for the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee, said both artificial and natural snow has been stockpiled.
“In terms of having enough snow, even if this weather stayed around, we do have it,” Gayda said in an interview. “Right now we are very confident in the pack we have, that we will be able to produce a great field of play.”
Kent Rideout, a spokesman for Cypress Mountain, said temperatures of 4 C and rain have resulted in some snow melting off the mountain located on Vancouver’s north shore.
“I don’t think it’s a panic situation but certainly both the mountain and VANOC are looking at this closely,” Rideout said. “Our plan is we are going to get through this storm, see what the impact is on the lower slopes of the mountain, and look at what we would need to do to get the mountain open and going.
“What I mean by that is snow management. Maybe moving snow from some runs over to other runs to keep things going.”Since November, VANOC has been using state-of-the-art equipment to turn 95.3 million litres of water into snow, which has been stockpiled at the Olympic venue and surrounding mountains.
Natural snow has also been pushed into massive piles and left for later use.
“In doing that, it insulates the snow from the weather systems like we are getting now,” said Gayda.
Areas of the mountain which will be used for Olympic competition have already been covered with over two metres of artificial snow.
“Right now we have all the snow that we need on the competition area,” said Gayda. “The nice thing about artificial snow is it’s more resilient and actually stands up better to this kind of weather.”
Soft snow conditions and warm temperatures were partly responsible for cancellation of a men’s and women’s World Cup parallel giant slalom snowboard event last winter. The competition was supposed to be an Olympic test event.
Poor visibility due to fog also hampered a World Cup aerials event in 2008.
Rideout said snowmaking will begin again when temperatures drop.
“The venues still look to be in very good shape right now,” he said. “They will return to making snow again as soon as the temperatures come back down.”
Given the current snow conditions, Rideout said the freestyle ski events could probably be held. The bigger issue would be visibility.
The weather could make or break the Games and the government is providing US$9 million in weather forecasting services during the Olympics, including an extensive network of weather stations and wind monitors.
PHOTO CREDIT: Kelly Schovanek.
