2011-12 Snow reporters Elizabeth and Carrie Lee discuss new snow depth on a powder day.
IT'S A COMMON misconception that Big Sky’s Snow Reporter job is the plushest in town – picturing a hung over twenty-something rolling out of bed at 5 am, checking a yardstick in his backyard, calling the snow phone with the report, and then calling it a day would make anyone envious for that kind of easy, low-responsibility job. But getting out the conditions report for 3,832 skiable acres is a long and involved process – one that starts at 4pm the evening before and doesn’t end until well into the next day. And the Snow Reporters? Late night at the Black Bear or no, they’ve got to be up at 4am and ready to put in a full 8 hour day.
4:00pm: The morning snow report begins the night before with Big Sky’s Ski Patrol crew. As the mountain is closing, Ski Patrol calls the Snow Reporter desk and leaves a message with the day’s high and low temps, the wind conditions, and the snowfall. This information is used in the weather section of Big Sky’s following day report.
4:00pm – 8am: The grooming crew takes to the slopes to begin the long task of grooming and shaping the slopes. As they work throughout the night, groomers also the keep tabs on the weather and snowfall.
4:55am: Groomers measure overnight snowfall and base depth at the scientific Lobo station. This location has been used for 35 years and provides an accurate mid-mountain snowfall total. The upper mountain is too dangerous to measure this early considering avalanche control work yet to be done.
5:00am: Groomers call or radio the Snow Reporter with the overnight snowfall totals, base, and any relevant weather information. The Snow Reporter then faxes the overnight totals, terrain openings, weather, and other resort info across the country and updates bigskyresort.com for the early risers. Numerous other websites, from Snocountry to Travel Montana, are updated with this early information, and then thousands of other sites scrape the information while we all sleep. This is all done before 6 a.m. but usually closer to 5:30a.m.
5:15am: The Snow Reporter updates the snow phone with the collected information. This is the early phone update and it will be updated several more times throughout the morning and day.
5:45am: Groomers drop off a report of their groomed runs at the base area for the reporter to pick up and add to our report and grooming map.
8:00am: Patrol calls in with snow conditions from the top of lone peak and the snow reporter makes any necessary updates to the snow report and snow phone.
8:00 am – 12:00pm: As the Snow Safety team and Patrol gather for their safety and control runs they will call or radio the reporter with any snowfall updates. Many times Big Sky will receive several inches of snow between the time of the original report and when the chairlifts start turning. When it’s snowing hard, the patrol and reporter will remain in contact with updates throughout the morning, especially when reports come in like knee deep, thigh deep, or waist deep off the south face, when perhaps only 4-6 inches fell mid-mountain.
In between all of these steps, the Snow Reporters are calling radio stations and local businesses, faxing and emailing out reports, creating and distributing grooming maps, and updating the report on multiple different platforms and outlets. We'll spare you the gory details, but when it comes down to it, snow reporting is a complex position that involves many elements beyond the actual snow phone. It’s a process that requires constant communication between the mountain operations teams and the crew inside spreading the messages.
We often joke that it truly is impossible to accurately measure snow when it comes to a mountain that is the biggest in America and faces every direction on the map, and the snow reporters always try to report a range of snowfall that gives a sense of snow all over the mounatin. But no matter what the report says, with 400 inches of snow a year and such a variety of terrain, you're sure to find great conditions - any day at Big Sky.
- Greer
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Snow Reporting is more than just sticking your ruler in the snow - it's a long process that involves players all over the mountain
