Weather nerds sometimes speak of “clown range” for weather models. Clown range implies that, beyond a certain time frame, the weather models are about as good as a clown predicting the weather, usually beyond about seven days. But for very wide-scale trends, there are ways to read tea leaves to discern large-scale trends: wet vs dry and warm vs cold. Will it be 0 or 45 on race day? Who knows. But even a month out, we can say whether there is a greater likelihood that it will be warmer or colder than normal: we were worried in early February of 2017 because the models painted a picture of very warm weather four weeks out and look where that led.

So far? So good. The next two weeks look warm-ish (but not snow-melting-warm) and then cold-ish. And beyond that? Normal-ish. I’ll take normal-ish with a good base in place. Normal-ish doesn’t melt two feet of snow. And normal-ish make for some of my favorite Birkies, like 2009 and 2010: cold to start, warm and sunny by afternoon.

But I’ll take anything with 50k of snow on the ground to Main Street, frankly.

So, time to fire up the old Weather Speculation machine!

Long story short: I think we’re in decent shape.

The next two weeks are warm. On the long-range maps, they show up as anomalously warm by 2 or more standard deviations. But anomalous warmth can be either good warmth (not too cold with some frozen precip to build the base) or bad warm (high temperatures or rain which eats the snow). And the next couple of weeks look like good warm.

For instance, the normal high in Hayward today is 22, with the normal low of -1. The next couple of days will sit right around 32 with some light snow or wintry mix. Not enough to add to the base, but nothing that will remove it either, and with last week’s storm, the base is in pretty good shape. For the rest of the week, the temperature will remain between 20 and 35, but it will stay dry. So is this quite warm? Sure, but it won’t do anything to the base. I’d much rather have this type of weather than temperatures of -10 followed by a rain storm.

This pattern may continue clear into early February, before it finally cools down. Not much new snow, but nothing that appears to be a major meltdown. I’d actually rather see this followed by a cool down closer to the Birkie than the other way around. Weather is cyclical, and a few warmer weeks are often followed by a few colder weeks. If we can survive the warm and get into a colder cycle come Birkie, as the models suggest, we’re in good shape.

Obviously, a ton can change between now and race day (and a lot will). And one of the best things on our side this year is a reasonably early race: February 22 rather than the 27th or 28th. If we assume that in any given year, the chance of the Birkie happening is 90% (since it’s been canceled about once a decade in its history) I would put the chances of the race happening, given current conditions, higher than that, in the neighborhood of 95%.

Ski on!

A new podcast is posted: you can find it in your feed, or download the .mp3.

As promised, the crossword can be found in the current edition of the Birch Scroll, and also posted here. Plus, here’s a link to play online!

I’m running the New York City marathon this weekend.

So are:

Kikkan Randall, Brian Gregg, Ida Sargent, Liz Stephen.

Combined, we have 11 Olympic appearances. I’ll let you guess who has zero.

But Kikkan and Brian were kind enough to come on the podcast and talk about their race preparation, and how it is to go from skiing towards running (and probably back to skiing soon).

(Oh, yes, Kikkan Randall on the BirkieGuide Podcast, pretty exciting.)

Find the podcast here, or download the .mp3 directly here if you want.

Just in time for the trail running festival this weekend. Take a listen on your device, or download the episode here.

And here’s the iTunes link. Is it even called iTunes anymore? I should figure out how to put it on Spotify, too.

(This is Podcast episode 21. More to come.)

Another entry to the burgeoning field of aggregating race results, this with data back 20 years! Birkielo (an elo rating system for ski races) gives you a score based on where you placed in races (taking in to account the strength of the field, using math!). Also, if you’ve skied a lot of races it doesn’t show all the results. Still a very cool tool, and probably has results going back as far as I’ve seen!

Thanks to someone who dug up and posted about the 1980 Wisconsin public television half hour piece on the Birkie. Some good sights to see as skiers tackled the course four decades ago, striding the course from Telemark to Hayward. And Mitch Mode, who is featured in the video, is now a Spirit of 35er, and finished the classic race this year in under 5 hours.

This year, the entire race was streamed live and is up on the Internet.

My favorite point is at 1:51 in to the video, when the men’s Elite field’s leaders pass a female skier wearing a colorful race suit and bib 501. None other than Kikkan Randall. She pulls off and double poles and the racers glide right by. The best part? The announcer doesn’t even notice!

Around 2:17, the men pass the women, just before Bitch Hill. I’m sure they’re working hard, but they look better on Bitch Hill than I did! Both races formed in to small packs around Highway OO, with four women and three men skiing the second half of the race together. At 2:38, Alayna Sonnesyn breaks the women’s pack on the Highway 77 climb, and the men stay together to the finish. The men hit Main Street at 2:49 for the sprint, and the women a minute or two later.

Congrats to the winners … and to everyone else who didn’t make the video.

Not a bad Birkie. A little snow, a little soft, a lot of skiing. And, no, the drizzle and rain that some predicted didn’t exactly materialize. The course skied cold and soft. This is quite often the case.

Way before I had the chance (or time, or energy, or skills) someone’s gone ahead and posted a bunch of data visualization. Check it out! And stay tuned for podcasting in the next few days. We have a bit of editing to do, but it should be a good podcast this year.

I may even post a personal race story for the first time in … a long time.

Hope you’re ready (especially if you are skiing the Korteloppet).

The trail looks great. Lots of snow, lots of webcams. And a nice transformation if you had a cached version of a webcam like I did:

That’s not too bad! The rest of the trail looks great, too. Cloudy, with a little spitting snow. I wound up being on a late flight so I’m inferring form the amount of snow on the ground in Minneapolis that there’s a lot of snow in Birkieland.

As for the weather …

The consensus is that it will be in the 20s to start for the Birkie, rising to around freezing during the race. As for the snow, there’s likely to be something. Probably around an inch, but with a ± of about … an inch. There could be nothing, but I’d expect at least a coating on the trail, and maybe after the groomers can groom it in, i.e. right before the race. So it won’t be hard, by any stretch of the imagination.

However, the snow will slow down travel tomorrow morning, so leave plenty of extra time to get to the start. An additional half hour may not be a bad idea, especially if you’re coming from further away. Warm, falling snow can be come ice, especially on any grades or hills as cars churn it below their wheels. So, take it easy, take it slow, take your time, and get ready to race.

Then, on Saturday evening, a heavier system moves through, with several inches of snow (but a sharp cutoff near the Birkie) and strong winds. If the Birkie was Sunday morning, it would be a mess.

Can we complain? Probably. Should we? Well, no, probably not. There are certainly worse places we could be.

We may produce a podcast from the Expo today to put on the radio when you’re driving to the start tomorrow. If not, find us (me) in Hayward (look for a guy with a media bib and a backpack full of beer) to get on the big podcast!