While weather in the Okanagan is often unpredictable, the rain that hit Big White Ski Resort this week was an unwelcome surprise and has made this the resort's latest opening day in more than 10 years.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Big White Ski Resort

While weather in the Okanagan is often unpredictable, the rain that hit Big White Ski Resort this week was an unwelcome surprise and has made this the resort's latest opening day in more than 10 years.

“Rain at this time of year is a disaster,” vice president Michael Ballingall told iNFOnews.ca. “Two degrees colder and we would have got three feet of snow.”

Ballingall said it was “like standing in the shower” on Tuesday, Dec. 5, when rain poured down on the resort.

“The village is like a Slurpee or a frozen margarita right now. It's just slush,” he said.

It's difficult to tell if this unusual weather is the result of climate change or a fluke event. Although, this isn’t the first time the weather has been unpredictable, Ballingall said.

“There was one year we opened Oct. 31 and then we had to close again four days later,” he said. “There was one year that we were open and operating for three weeks, and it… was 15, 16, 17 degrees over Christmas, New Year's. We stayed open, but it was unseasonably warm. It's also been minus 30. So, there's nothing you can really predict.”

Currently, the Big White team is hard at work draining water away from the village to prepare for opening day tomorrow.

“The creeks are running again. That's not good,” Ballingall said. “Normally, that would freeze.

"Now, what we're excited about is the temperature next week is going to go down to minus 10, minus 15 degrees. That will firm everything up again.”

Usually the resort can bank on enough snow each year in the last week of November and first week of December that it doesn’t need to invest in snowmaking, Ballingall said.

This year, not only is the mountain opening late, but limited snowfall has resulted in restrictions on which runs and lifts can open.

While other mountains require heavy grooming on their runs, Big White has generally been able to depend on nature to provide enough snow to cover its naturally bumpy runs.

“We have rocks and trees and debris all over our ski runs (in the summer) because it's normally covered with so much snow,” Ballingall said. “It’s extremely dangerous to go off the runs that are prepared, because we just don't know what's underneath there. So, we want everybody to play safe.”

Ballingall also said that compared to other resorts in the region Big White was very lucky with the snow fall it got last night.

The resort may extend the closing date in the spring as some years there's still up to 300 centimetres of snow on the mountain.

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