The Birkie has a course preview up, and for the most part, it is quite informative. You can follow along as they ski the course, see where the hills are (and aren’t) and add up the total climb which comes out to … about 250 feet per lap.

Wait, really? That seems awfully … flat. Sure the race won’t feature the Power Lines, or Firetower Hill, or Boedecker, or OO, or that sneaky climb with 23k to go, or the Mosquito Brook Grinder, or Bitch Hill, or Sunset Hill, or the 77 Grinder, but 200 feet over 10k is an average of just 1.5% up or down which is just not a lot of climbing.

It seems flat because it is flat! The units on the course preview are all mucked up. On the upper left, the elevation is shown in meters and reads in at 135m. But the Birkie is actually at about 440m. Down below at the lower left, the course is shown in feet, at about 440 feet (give or take) when that should be meters. So instead of multiplying by 3.28081 (if you thought i had to look that up, how dare you!) they divided. So the 250 feet of climb per lap is more like 250 meters.

That 27 foot climb up the Bauer wouldn’t homologate. But it turns out it’s a 36m climb, and the total height differential on the course is 43m, with 160m of climb over 3.75km (here’s the 3.75km homologation, and all the courses at Telemark). The rest of the course is relatively flat, but since it uses a good deal of the World Cup trails, there are definitely hills to be found! In fact, the homologation notes that “[Total Climb] is at the higher end at 160m.”

While the citizens race will leave out a couple of these steeper hills, it will climb much of it. This isn’t some namby-pamby European loppet up and down a river valley. This is the Birkie. It wouldn’t be the Birkie without hills.

Update: another answer, via Nordic Insights via some USST folks via Strava (I guess they’re allowed on the course early) is just about 213m per lap. So the 50k race will have about 1000m of climb, which, it turns out, is just about the same as the normal Birkie.

It may not be the Birkie we’ve been hoping for, but there’s still weather to discuss.

Also note that the Birkie has official information posted about this week’s events, so check it out if you want details. I know little more than what Ketzel said that the snow is decent (I’ve also heard “good enough”) and here’s the course preview. Hint: click “watch on youtube” and watch it at double speed.

For those interested, here is Thumper helping edit and produce the podcast. (He would much rather have been pet.)

So what’s happening with the Birkie this year? Rather than rehash everything here, I’ll direct you to the Birkie website, their youtube Q&A and suggest you listen to the podcast, since the most recent episode is all about the 2024 race plans.

Some TL;DR:

1. Most of this is subject to change if the Birkie gets a significant snowfall between now and race day. No way to finish in town without water skiing, but a loop race is possible.
2. For most skiers, an open track. For Birkie classic skiers, a race on Sunday. For Birkie skate skiers, different start times. For everyone, open track options on Thursday and Friday.
3. No new timing for waves. Given 2021, the 2025 race will look back to 2020, 2022 and 2023 for wave placement.
4. A big celebration area in Cable. Beer, brats and entertainment. Main Street just transported 50k north. (Except there may be beer hand ups at the laps rather than just on the lake.)
5. Ski three laps and you get your pin.

Some discussion:

• You could probably get some extra skiing in if you wanted, by skiing extra loops. I doubt they’ll pull people after 3 laps, with the exception of slower skate wave 1-2 skiers where they’ll need to clear the course for Jessie. (But you could go out and ski later, probably.)
• You can definitely go out and cheer for the Supertour (i.e. Jessie) and get to ski your Birkie, which wouldn’t have been the case before the changes.
• PH and Korteloppet skiers get just about the right amount of skiing in for their race. Birkie skiers get a bit less (other than elites).
• The course will probably be flatter than the regular Birkie and probably faster. Please don’t snowplow the hills!
• They’re taking the elevator shaft out of the course, not because it’s that hard of a hill, but because it scares people.
• The region really needs you to come. Go get a beer in town. Get a pizza. The economy is suffering this year.
• But if you can’t justify the travel, at least the airlines will generally give you a voucher if you cancel rather than having to hope for a weather waiver like 2017. Unless you purchased a “basic” fare. In which case, I can’t help you if you can’t first help yourself.
• And come back in 2025!

New podcast with the inimitable Ketzel Levens and if you listen and are interested in some of the things we talk about, here are some links. I’m not going to try to explain, well, any of this, but just give some places to go for a deep dive:

MJO:

• What is the Madden-Julian Oscillation and why do we care? (Climate.gov)
• Current MJO forecast and information (Climate Prediction Center)
• Madden-Julian Oscillation (Wikipedia)
• Detection of a 40–50 Day Oscillation in the Zonal Wind in the Tropical Pacific (Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences)

Sudden Stratospheric warming

• Sudden Stratospheric Warming Events (NWS)
• Disrupted polar vortex brings sudden stratospheric warming in February 2023 (Climate.gov)
• Sudden Stratospheric Warming (Wikipedia)

CONUS — Continental United States

NWS Duluth

Climate Prediction Center 8-14 day outlook

CFSV2 weekly temperature anomalies

NWS Forecast Points

As for Birkie weather … we’re a couple of days closer to the race and not much has changed. Here and there a model shows a snowstorm crossing Wisconsin a few days before the race, but most likely we’re looking at a manmade course, with the possibility a late-breaking snowstorm lets the Birkie run a long-loop course to OO and back. (I am assuming they would rather do that than try to pick up thousands of skiers at Rosie’s or Duffy’s field at a makeshift finish line). The lake is unlikely to survive a warm week and some rain, and the weather thereafter does not look cold enough to refreeze it. It’s not looking to be a perfect Birkie, but hopefully we can salvage something.

Well … something like the Marcialonga.

The Marcialonga started in 1969, and has always been in a marginal climate for snow. 1975, 1989, 1990; well before climate change was on the tip of anyone’s tongue, the race was being canceled every few years (and shortened others). The course ranges from a low of 800 meters before the final climb into Cavalese and is at nearly 1500 meters near its high point; with mountain snow elevation-dependent, there is often snow on some of the course but not the rest. But the race always goes on, with a 70-kilometer-long, 6-meter-wide ribbon of manufactured snow laid across the valley.

So, what would it take to have a manmade snow Birkie? It’s a heavy lift, but not insurmountable. The Birkie is wider than the Marcialonga, and with the classic trail, it would require about 650,000 square meters of snow to be manufactured (including the classic trail, 500,000 with just the Birkie trail), as opposed to about 420,000 square meters for the Marcialonga. A bit more, but same order of magnitude. How much snow is that? It’s about 160 acres. About four Buck Hills. About half of an Afton Alps.

There should be plenty of cold water from the river, plenty of power (from, well, from the power lines) and plenty of room to store the snow. The big issue that the Birkie would face would be moving the snow. The Marcialonga makes snow in several areas along the course and then moves it around. The whole course follows a river and parallels roadways, so there is plenty of water and it’s easy to move the snow. Downhill areas don’t have to move snow, they just pump it onto their slopes since nowhere in Afton is more than a kilometer from anywhere else.

The Birkie probably has the most interesting terrain of any big race, but it doesn’t follow the river. Or a road. There’s only really water available at two points along the course: the start and (near) the finish (and maybe Mosquito Brook). The rest of the course would require pumping groundwater (a lot of groundwater) and also bringing in power, and then finding somewhere to store all the snow. Just probably not going to happen.

So a Birkie operation would have to be a blow-and-truck operation. This would probably mean setting up snowmaking in three or four locations, probably at the start, in Seeley at the base of OO, near Mosquito Brook, and near the airport. Then blowing as much snow as they’ve blown near the start this year (if not more) at each location, keeping it in piles, and then, if there’s not natural snow, shuttling it off to the race course. A dump truck can carry about 15 cubic meters, enough to cover the trail by about 5 meters. So, 200 trips per kilometer, or 10,000 trips for the whole course (and that’s just the skate course). With three or four snowmaking locations, each trip might take, on average, an hour to complete. 10,000 hours would require about 400 truck-days to distribute the snow across the course, so to lay down enough snow that it wouldn’t just melt in a warm snap would require a huge fleet of dump trucks running 24/7, say, 100 trucks and 200 drivers for four days. It’s basically what the race already does for Main Street, multiplied by about 100. Just getting that fleet in place seems … tricky, to say the least!

Plus, the snowmaking operation piece would have to take place throughout the winter ahead of the race each year, even if 80% of the races might not need it, which is a lot of investment in something unlikely to be needed. One question is whether snow could be stockpiled. In Vermont, Craftsbury has experimented with storing snow during the winter under tarps and wood chips; the Birkie could theoretically save some of the snow from winter to winter, top it off each year, and then keep it as a sort of strategic snow reserve. This would have to be in some well-placed shaded area on the north side of a steep slope (probably available near Telemark) but the cost to move snow there from elsewhere on the course might be more expensive than just making it in place.

There’s no good solution, and while we’ve had a good run of Birkies, every 10 years we might have a dud winter like this one (or 2017, or 2007, or 2000, etc). The Birkie can do the math on snowmaking, but it might not easily pencil out.

Want more weather? Stay tuned for a podcast dropping soon!

The Birkie had a webinar tonight and the news is … not so good.

The lake had 9″ of ice a week ago. Now it has 4″. Snow is still missing from the Upper Midwest, aside from the piles made in Cable. The next two weeks look warm. Unless there’s a change in the weather that is known to be extreme, the Birkie is not going to look anywhere near normal.

My prognostication:

Most likely: they spread the snow out into a 10k loop and have a lap race. I’d guess that there might be enough snow for 12k and they’ll have people ski it three times. Maybe the times won’t mean anything for next year’s wave placement, given how conditions may vary over the course of the event. Maybe it will be open track for everyone. Maybe some sort of mass start for elites and then rolling starts for others, or maybe wave starts for everyone. Definitely people will be spread out over days like 2021.

Second most likely: there’s enough natural snow for either an out-to-OO-and-back race or a point-to-point race ending shy of Hayward (at either Fish Hatchery or Duffy’s Field).

Third most likely: there is a threaded needle with enough cold to freeze the lake and enough snow for a full race. This would have to occur over the course of two weeks, since the next 10 days won’t make any ice or snow. The Birkie only needs about 6″ of snow to hold a good race, but if there’s a little ice on the lake and it snows, it will insulate the lake from a cold snap. So we need either cold and then snow or, if the lake opens up, snow on open water and then cold weather to freeze it up. In either case, this would require a 2021-like polar vortex to freeze the lake. Not impossible, not that likely.

Fourth most likely: No race. Warm temperatures won’t really do a number on snow whales, but warmth and rain may. Luckily, the weather in the next few days looks relatively dry, so the whales will probably survive enough that they can get the ks they need. But if it’s 50 and raining the week before the race, well, let’s hope that it’s not the case.

And … right now, there would be zero Birkies held.

The good news is that there is a month until the race, not a week. The 8 to 14 day outlook shows that the next week will not be conducive to making the Birkie trail go from green to white. Some model runs have been cutting off the huge ridge which will pump above-freezing temperatures to the Arctic Ocean in the Yukon and Nunavut (really) and tempering the meltdown. Some aren’t. The next two weeks are not going to be kind to the cause.

The longer forecast is … not as bad, but this could just be regression to the mean. Luckily for us, the Birkie keeps the trail in terrific shape, so we only need a few inches of snow to hold a perfectly good race (for instance, in 2012, the was bare ground in Spooner but the race itself was fine) and near-normal temperatures plus a bit of precipitation equals Birkie. Hayward this month has not only been warm (near normal for now, but the next few days look quite warm) but also dry. Right now the dry weather is almost as concerning as the warm weather. It’s hard to ski the Birkie on frozen grass.

Do you want to hear commiseration and potentially hope in more depth? If so, Ketzel Levens will be joining us soon on the podcast to discuss further!

In early January last year, there was no shortage of snow in Birkieland. A thick blanket of snow covered the North Country, so much so that the concern was less about snowcover and more that the lake wouldn’t be frozen because of the insulation above it.

No such worry about the insulation on the lake this year. The real worry is whether it will freeze at all (and whether there will be snow to ski nearby).

We’ve had a good run of Birkie years: aside from 2017, it’s been 15/16 dating back to 2007 for perfect (or darned close) conditions. As global warming has warmed temperatures, colder areas have seen more moisture and temperatures are still cool enough for ample snow. There have always been dry, warm winters. Four of the warmest eight Januaries in Duluth history occurred in the 1800s, as did three of the warmest five Februaries. The trend lines may point up, but there’s a lot of noise.

There are two things to worry about right now. One is ice. Ice conditions right now will barely support anything more than a swimmer, and certainly not a Pisten Bully. Conditions should improve later this week, with cold weather forecast and the potential for some nights and even days well below 0 in the next two weeks. We still may have less-than-ideal ice thickness on the lake, but without much snow it should freeze down quickly and solidly. Cold weather without snow is best for ice, if not for skiing, because there’s no insulation to keep the ice from freezing down.

Below normal temperatures should help with ice formation. The linked photo keeps updating so … it may no longer show those below normal temperatures.

Then there’s snow. Luckily for us, the Birkie isn’t for another 7 weeks or so, and we only need snow a few days before the race. We’d prefer a year like last year with a thaw-proof mat of feet of snow, but it would be nice to build some up in the next few weeks. There are low-snow years with perfectly fine Birkies.

2003 might be a good example. December 2002 was warm and nearly snow-free. Not as warm as this year (especially since it had a cold start) but there was only 1.9″ of snow during the month, and basically no skiing to speak of by the end of the month. December 2003 started out even warmer: January 8 had a high of 51˚ in Hayward! Temperatures did dip below 0˚ on the 11th and every night was below 0˚ for 19 days, freezing everything up but with minimal snowfall, just 5.3″ during the month. February started off with 6.5″ of snow but there was only 1.3″ the rest of the month. Despite a couple of days above freezing, there was enough snow for the Birkie by the end of the month (and a cold Birkie at that, with a low of -7˚ and a high of 15˚; two days later the low was -16˚ and high just 3˚).

The Birkie can manage with very minimal snow. As long as the ground is frozen and there’s no big thaw, lack of snow in January is not the final nail in the coffin for the race. It gives much less leeway for a thaw, however (see 2007 and 2017), so once the lake is frozen, it would be nice to pile a few feet of snow on top!

Well, not quite yet, but weather is about to hit all of the Upper Midwest. The Birkie Trail should get a few inches of snow today and tonight, wetter and heavier snow that will groom up well, and a few inches of snow on Tuesday night that will be drier and more powdery. If that was all that was coming, we’d declare it perfect to be groomed up before the race.

The main event arrives on Wednesday evening, with an additional foot of snow (or potentially more) falling overnight and into Thursday. This will be drier, colder snow, it will be windy, and the NWS is throwing the “B” word around (blizzard) so expect travel to be difficult. The Birkie will probably push this snow off to the side of the trail and try to groom up some of the denser snow below. But it’s going to be a soft, and slow, Birkie.

Travel impacts are going to be significant. It won’t begin snowing in earnest until later on Wednesday night in Hayward, but snow will begin to the south earlier, and may continue throughout the day on Wednesday (albeit light). The worst travel will be on Wednesday evening and morning and midday Thursday, with heavy snow and strong winds from a Des Moines-Madison line north. Snow will begin to lighten up on Thursday but may continue through the day, with a foot or more in Hayward and up to two feet further south. Driving on Thursday may prove nearly impossible.

Friday looks much better. Cold (very cold overnight) but calm and not precipitating. It may serve skiers well to plan to travel north on Friday morning rather than Thursday, although road crews may have a handle on things on Thursday evening.

For those flying in, Thursday could be a mess. This is an impressive storm, on Wednesday evening impacts should stretch across the country, from Denver to Boston, so flights may not depart on time (or at all). Minneapolis should be able to handle the snow, although storms of this magnitude are rare, and airlines may proactively cancel some flights, especially for aircraft which would spend the night overnight in Minneapolis, in order to give crews the ability to keep the airfield clear. As a Delta hub, most aircraft are already off to other destinations overnight, but I would not be surprised to see significant cancelations on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning: airlines do not like aircraft to be stranded by weather, since that affects schedules downstream as well. By Thursday afternoon, with the snow letting up, I would expect more flights to be operating as the airlines will need to begin to move stranded passengers. If you are flying and want to change your flight, Delta has a change fee waiver up, and other airlines likely have the same.

Note that this storm may be the heaviest snowfall all time in February in Minneapolis, it would have to surpass 13.8″ to make that mark. That occurred February 20 of 2011, which was the Sunday and Monday before Birkie, so it did not affect travel to the race. The 2014 storm did hit Minneapolis solidly, although not as hard as Hayward, and it also hit significantly later in the day on Thursday and into Friday. That storm began in the evening on Thursday in Hayward and continued through midday on Friday, about 24 hours “later” than the current storm. This should be good news for Birkie skiers—the Birkie will have an extra day to do things like plow parking areas—but may mean tricky conditions for those participating in Friday events. So if you’re in the Kortelopet or Prince Haakon, leave a lot of extra time to get to parking areas and onto buses on Friday morning.

It also means that conditions on Friday will likely be very soft; remember that was the year with very slow conditions for most skiers. It will be cold overnight on Thursday, and the Birkie groomers will probably try to plow off new snow and pull up old ice to mix in and freeze down, but there’s only so much they can do in 18 hours before the race. For Saturday, the extra day should be helpful for the groomers to plow and compact the snow, but I would still expect the course to be soft, especially as more skiers ski over it. The extra day of compaction by skiers and groomers south of OO may lead to improved conditions for the second half of the race.

Safe travels, and stay tuned for updates here and on the podcast!

New podcast up checking in with Ben and Kristy from the Birkie, and Ed Liebsch with a weather forecast. The likelihood of a good deal of snow before race day is up there! Don’t expect the old, dirty, icy conditions on race day.