If you’re new to this site, one of the services we provide is weather speculation. Some years (and you can scroll through all of our weather speculation posts here) speculation is whether the base will hold until the race, and whether we’ll be looking at a shortened race or whether we’ll have anything to ski on at all.
This is not one of those years. Last year, with two weeks before the race, we only had a few inches of base. The year before—when there was not a lick of snow south of Spooner on race day—my forecast for two weeks before race day was for a 30% chance that the race would be significantly curtailed or canceled. Even the year before that, in 2011, a week-before meltdown saw temperatures soar to 50º and snow shrivel from the trail.
This year? I think we’re good. There has been deep snow on the Birkie Trail all year, 1½ to 2 feet of it, and it hasn’t gone anywhere. Since the beginning of December in Hayward, it has gone above freezing once, for eight hours, reaching 37º. It’s been below zero most every night. That’s a cold, hard base. There hasn’t been a ton of snow, but there hasn’t been a lick of melt.
And the next few weeks look pretty solid. First of all, it’s an early Birkie this year, so that buys us a week of not having to worry about an early spring. For the next week, temperatures in Hayward look to stay nice and chilly, like the season has been going so far. Highs 5 to 15 above, lows 5 to 15 below. The week after looks a bit more up in the air, with some potential for flirtation with the freezing mark, but also potential for precipitation. It will likely be in the form of snow, but even a rainstorm at this juncture won’t put a dent in the snow. The only issue would be a week of temperatures in the 50s, and that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
Of course, we’ll keep an eye on it all.
