‘It’s a pretty critical time of the year for us’: Snow-making underway at Rabbit Hill

Ski hills around Edmonton are working hard to get their runs ready while enduring above average November temperatures. CTV Edmonton's Gates Guarin reports.

While November has seen balmy weather thus far, local ski hills are eager to start prepping the slopes.

“It’s a pretty critical time of the year for us,” said Derek Look, co-owner of Rabbit Hill Snow Resort in Edmonton. “We start watching the temperature pretty much every hour of the day and as soon as it gets cold enough, we start making snow.”

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He said they’re typically ready to go by Thanksgiving, but it all depends on Mother Nature.

“It’s always difficult when there’s such a fluctuation in weather,” Look said. “If we can go without shutting our equipment down and just run 24 hours a day, obviously we get open much quicker this time of year.”

Workers are currently running snow guns for a portion of the day and then shutting down as the day gets warmer.

It takes about 150 million to 190 million litres of water to get all of the runs open each year, covering about 16 hectares.

Look said they can still make snow at temperatures around -3 C or -4 C, but not nearly as much when it gets colder than -15 C.

“If we could see those evening temperatures of -15 C, that would be amazing,” said Look.

But those frigid nights aren’t being forecasted for at least another week.

CTV News Edmonton’s chief meteorologist Josh Classen that five years out of the last decade have had snow by mid-November.

“It’s only 50/50 that we would have snow by now that stays for the rest of the winter,” said Classen. “You get to Dec. 1, 90 per cent of the time there’s snow on the ground. I don’t see it in the next five to seven days … but odds are by Dec. 1, we’ll have snow."

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Gates Guarin