I recall in the two winter months before the games reading stories about Pyeongchang relating how they were worrying about the climate history of low snowfall that seemed to be what was happening. And wondering what they were going to do?
When one looks at the helicopter shots of the Pyeongchang slopes where alpine events are being held, areas outside the ski runs are oddly either bare ground or obvious thin patched white areas of natural snow. Before the athletes arrived, the below link relates there was but an inch of natural snow on the slopes. Despite cold below freezing winter temperatures, their winter climate from continental Siberian atmospheric flows, is rather dry. Snow Makers Inc, a Michigan company supplied equipment to make the snow one sees on runs and has been doing so over several olympics. The snow making equipment and capacity to make man made snow at the resort is among the largest in the world.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/02/fake_snow_used_at_2018_winter.html
During the alpine ski races, Bodie has sometimes talked about the dense firm "chalky" nature of the snow that was giving some skiers trouble. In fact tonight in the Men's GS quite a few have skid out DNF. Conversely others like Mikaela thought the aggressive grippy snow conditions were superb for their own snow preferences. It occurs to me that the apparent frequent lack of natural winter snows in South Korea may also be a key reason why local Korean people have not had much interest in attending alpine events simply because they are not used to having adequate natural snow depths for skiing. Well at least until this recent decade when ski resorts have been built. Nor have children been used to playing in it in local areas where they live and have grown up. Conversely their keen interest in ice sports makes more sense.
When one looks at the helicopter shots of the Pyeongchang slopes where alpine events are being held, areas outside the ski runs are oddly either bare ground or obvious thin patched white areas of natural snow. Before the athletes arrived, the below link relates there was but an inch of natural snow on the slopes. Despite cold below freezing winter temperatures, their winter climate from continental Siberian atmospheric flows, is rather dry. Snow Makers Inc, a Michigan company supplied equipment to make the snow one sees on runs and has been doing so over several olympics. The snow making equipment and capacity to make man made snow at the resort is among the largest in the world.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/02/fake_snow_used_at_2018_winter.html
During the alpine ski races, Bodie has sometimes talked about the dense firm "chalky" nature of the snow that was giving some skiers trouble. In fact tonight in the Men's GS quite a few have skid out DNF. Conversely others like Mikaela thought the aggressive grippy snow conditions were superb for their own snow preferences. It occurs to me that the apparent frequent lack of natural winter snows in South Korea may also be a key reason why local Korean people have not had much interest in attending alpine events simply because they are not used to having adequate natural snow depths for skiing. Well at least until this recent decade when ski resorts have been built. Nor have children been used to playing in it in local areas where they live and have grown up. Conversely their keen interest in ice sports makes more sense.
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