California is the snowiest place on earth right now. This is after it experienced record snowfalls since November. Prior to this, it had statewide drought problems for years.
In the California resort of Mammoth, which is near Yosemite National Park, the record on snowfall has been broken. More powder fell in January compared to any month in its history. Last January 25, more than 6 meters of snow fell, breaking the record by 1 meter, according to Telegraph Co UK. What's more, it was expected that more snow would fall during the succeeding days.
Other resorts in North America were also experiencing freak snowfall. Like resorts in Colorado and Utah, as well as Whistler in Canada. For Mammoth resort in California, this means more skiing and snowboarding till mid-June, of which the usual is for holidaymakers to be already with their swimsuits and no longer their ski wear.
This is favorable for California in that it helped to end the drought. However, some resorts had to temporarily close down because of too much snow, and also because the danger of avalanche occurring is high. Furthermore, some places had flood due to too much rainfall or melting snow. The covering of powdery snow started in November for most parts of North America. While in Europe, there was a slow start to the skiing season, with resorts in the Alps still using snow machines until January when the drought ended.
At the moment, Mammoth is reporting 170 inches of snow depth. Obertauern, which bills itself as Austria's snowiest ski resort, currently has 67 inches. For about 5 years, California has been beset with problems of statewide drought. "This has been an exceptionally good ski season to date for the premier resort of the United States," says Paul Wisely from myweather2.co.uk.
