{"id":18867,"date":"2019-09-27T14:53:55","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T20:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=60498"},"modified":"2019-09-27T14:53:55","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T20:53:55","slug":"joel-gratz-of-opensnow-dishes-on-what-it-takes-to-ski-pow-at-your-favorite-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/joel-gratz-of-opensnow-dishes-on-what-it-takes-to-ski-pow-at-your-favorite-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Joel Gratz of OpenSnow dishes on what it takes to ski pow at your favorite mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Joel Gratz, Colorado resident and founder of OpenSnow.com, speaks to the assembled crowd at Thursday’s annual Summit Chamber of Commerce Ski Area COO Breakfast season kick-off event at Copper Mountain Resort.<\/strong>
Katie Girtman \/ Studio Kiva Photography<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

COPPER MOUNTAIN RESORT \u2014 After recapping last winter\u2019s epic snow year, powder snow forecaster Joel Gratz pivoted to what he described as \u201cthe No. 1 question for this season\u2019s outlook.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReady for this?\u201d the founder of OpenSnow.com<\/a> asked the audience at Thursday\u2019s Summit Chamber of Commerce Ski Area COO Breakfast.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrumroll please,\u201d Gratz said before the crowd made cutlery clang together atop white tableclothes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be snow,\u201d Gratz\u2019s next slide read, to a laugh from the assembled crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth due to time restrictions and science restrictions that\u2019s the only slide,\u201d Gratz said, \u201cand all I\u2019m going to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s the deal,\u201d Gratz continued, breaking from his humor. \u201cLast season, no one predicted it. We just wrote an article a couple of weeks ago looking at 10 forecasts for last season nationwide versus what actually happened with snow and temperatures. Nothing was really that close. Maybe a seasonal forecast was right in one region, but wrong in a lot of regions. There was no consistency in any one organization or forecast model getting a forecast right for a winter \u2014 a three-month season \u2014 year-in and year-out consistently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather than freaking out over long-range predictions, Gratz educated COO Breakfast attendees about what to pay attention to when chasing powder. Gratz said last year was so good not because of the volume of snow, but rather the consistency of the precipitation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can go weeks and weeks and weeks without snow,\u201d Gratz said. \u201cThat\u2019s normal. It can happen. But it didn\u2019t happen last year, which is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of what to pay attention to in specific forecasts, Gratz discouraged powder hounds from paying attention to most anything longer than 14 days out. Eight to 10 days out, Gratz said to give credence to the general temperature and weather pattern outlooks. Six to seven days out, Gratz said that\u2019s when it begins to crystallize for him that a storm is coming. Then, three to five days out, Gratz says he dials in specific storm details.<\/p>\n

Gratz also said there is no correlation between early-season snowfall and the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

As for the most important variable to big pow days, Gratz zeroed in on wind direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to be on the slopes that the wind is blowing the snow to, where it\u2019s depositing,\u201d Gratz said. \u201cAnd that varies across every different run at every different mountain. So, partially, there is some work involved. You look at Google Maps. You zoom around, and you look up on the hill and you start thinking through this a little bit and, like most things, if you love this \u2014 love powder and love to find the best powder \u2014 you\u2019ll do a little extra work.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Summit County, he said east, south and southwest winds aren\u2019t ideal, as mountain ranges block ideal airflow needed for precipitation in those situations. In terms of ideal wind directions, northwest wind is ideal for Loveland Ski Area, Copper Mountain Resort and Breckenridge Ski Resort, while west winds are ideal for Keystone Resort, Arapahoe Basin Ski Area and Loveland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get the wind direction right with the forecast,\u201d Gratz said, \u201cyou\u2019ll be in the ballpark of the best powder two-thirds of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gratz clarified that wind direction isn\u2019t the only variable, as moisture and energy are crucial to not get skunked. Following his presentation, Gratz said hard work on the part of individual powder chasers is also crucial to skiing the best pow. Rather than waking up and just looking for the biggest snow report, Gratz said to spend time researching what has happened at spots over the last few days, namely what its surface has been looking like.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day is a little bit different,\u201d Gratz said. \u201cI try to challenge people to think, not just follow somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joel Gratz, Colorado resident and founder of OpenSnow.com, speaks to the assembled crowd at Thursday’s annual Summit Chamber of Commerce Ski Area COO Breakfast season kick-off event at Copper Mountain Resort.Katie Girtman \/ Studio Kiva Photography COPPER MOUNTAIN RESORT \u2014 After recapping last winter\u2019s epic snow year, powder snow forecaster Joel Gratz pivoted to what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 15:55:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}