"Study Says Ski Areas Exaggerate Snow Totals" nooo?

[tt431]

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/86576/
Study Says Ski Areas Exaggerate Snow Totals
Wednesday, 12/02/09

Steve Zind - Colchester, VT

(Host) A study by two Dartmouth College professors has concluded that many ski areas exaggerate snow totals.

The study compares snowfall reports from ski areas with the totals recorded by nearby government weather stations.

Study co-author Eric Zitzewitz is an Associate Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College.

Zitzewitz says he found the greatest discrepancy between official totals and amounts reported by ski areas took place on the weekends.

(Zitewitz) "That's why we look at weekends in particular. If all we found was a difference between the ski resorts' report and the nearby government weather stations and that difference was the same every day of the week, I don't think we could conclude anything about exaggeration. But our measure is the difference between the amount they're exaggerating on the weekend and on weekdays."

(Host) Zitzewitz also says the advent of technology like the iPhone, which enables skiers to disseminate their own reports directly from the slopes, had a measurable impact by reducing the snow totals reported by ski areas.

The study looked at resorts in both the eastern and western U.S. In the east, the official weather stations are, on average, 26 miles from the ski area and within 200 feet of mountain summits. Data from any weather station that was more than 1000 feet below the summit of a ski area was not used.

Parker Riehle is President of the Vermont Ski Area Association. He says the study is flawed because it lumps all eastern ski areas together.

Riehle says a comparison of snow totals might be fair for ski areas in Michigan or Ohio where the terrain is relatively flat. But in Vermont there might be a significant difference in elevation between an official weather station and a ski resort, making a fair comparison impossible.

And Riehle says ski areas would be the first to blow the whistle on each other if snow totals were exaggerated.

(Riehle) "There's a lot of competition amongst the ski areas. If they know full well that something like that is going on that would not go unnoticed or unmentioned. And again, customer review; a ski area, if they ever tried to do that, could get away with it for a day or two. But that's not going to fly."

(Host) Riehle says ski areas have no incentive to inflate weekend snow totals because many skiers don't want to drive to the slopes in a storm.

[skiingsnow]

Tom was on WCAX last night about this...

http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=11607884

[tt431]

Tom was on WCAX last night about this...

http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=11607884

"We have four live webcams here in Killington. Other resorts have webcams. You have the consumer that can pull out their iPhone and tweet from the resort," Horrocks said. "You know, it's gotta pass the straight face test no matter what you put out there."
I know of 3 cams k1 Ski Club, Bear, Golf Club. Where is the 4th one, is this a new cam?

[skiingsnow]

Tom was on WCAX last night about this...

http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=11607884

I know of 3 cams k1 Ski Club, Bear, Golf Club. Where is the 4th one is this a new cam?

K1 Cam, Mountain View Cam, Bear Cam, and Pico Cam. Plus the one at The Basin.

[tt431]

Tom was on WCAX last night about this...

http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=11607884

I know of 3 cams k1 Ski Club, Bear, Golf Club. Where is the 4th one is this a new cam?

K1 Cam, Mountain View Cam, Bear Cam, and Pico Cam.

Pico has a cam? I never knew.

[skiingsnow]

Tom was on WCAX last night about this...

http://www.wcax.com/global/story.asp?s=11607884

I know of 3 cams k1 Ski Club, Bear, Golf Club. Where is the 4th one is this a new cam?

K1 Cam, Mountain View Cam, Bear Cam, and Pico Cam.

Pico has a cam? I never knew.

It was suppost to be up for last season, but never did, but they say it will be up and running this year.

[BigAirSkier1580]

Was going to post this last night.

The study is flawed bigtime. I do feel that snowfall is exaggerated some, and DEFINITELY conditions are exaggerated to be much better than they are (Ice ≠ Packed Powder). But to try and call them out when using snowfall reports a great distance apart from the other report is asinine. The only way this study would hold any water is if they took the independent measurements at the same site as the ski resorts measurements, not 20+ miles away.

Oh, and odd that K boasted 4 cams, yet you only have access to one from their website.

[skiingsnow]

Oh, and odd that K boasted 4 cams, yet you only have access to one from their website.

2 are up now ("K1 Webcam" and "Mountain View Cam"), other 2 later when there is something to look at?

[BigAirSkier1580]

Oh, and odd that K boasted 4 cams, yet you only have access to one from their website.

2 are up now ("K1 Webcam" and "Mountain View Cam"), other 2 later when there is something to look at?

Mis-spoke on the Mountain View. There was a blank area at the bottom of the "Beast Cams" page after it said Mountain View. Figured the view should've been in there as opposed to being blank with no link except for the side frame.

[Bubba]

The economy is in tatters, unemployment is 10%, the dollar is falling, Wall Street has been out of control, the housing market sucks.....and this is what Dartmouth economics professors are worried about?

[rogman]

Here is the link to the study itself:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ericz/snowed.pdf
The science seems a little weak, because the data they're using is pretty sketchy. Seems like they had a hypothesis, went and found some data to support it. The part that put me over the edge was that a single iphone app "cured" the problem for ski reports, but only for those areas with good AT&T reception. That's connecting a lot of dots to support their conclusion. Who funded this? Skiresorts.com (the iPhone app cited)?

So, do ski resorts exaggerate? Yes. Do they exaggerate more on weekends when there's more at stake? Who cares. Do people looking for random hookups in bars exaggerate? Yes. Do they do it more on weekends? Oh lord....

[JerseyGuy]

Leave the ski industry alone -- please!
Leave the ski industry alone! Right now! I mean it!

[tt431]

Leave the ski industry alone -- please!
Leave the ski industry alone! Right now! I mean it!

Not taking the byte?

[Dr. NO]

Here is the link to the study itself:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ericz/snowed.pdf
The science seems a little weak, because the data they're using is pretty sketchy. Seems like they had a hypothesis, went and found some data to support it. The part that put me over the edge was that a single iphone app "cured" the problem for ski reports, but only for those areas with good AT&T reception. That's connecting a lot of dots to support their conclusion. Who funded this? Skiresorts.com (the iPhone app cited)?

So, do ski resorts exaggerate? Yes. Do they exaggerate more on weekends when there's more at stake? Who cares. Do people looking for random hookups in bars exaggerate? Yes. Do they do it more on weekends? Oh lord....

Hmm, you think we could get a government grant to do this study? I be the Dartmouth Prof. got a good pay off to do this study. Probably connected it to the BS data for Global Warming too.

[rogman]

Here is the link to the study itself:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ericz/snowed.pdf
The science seems a little weak, because the data they're using is pretty sketchy. Seems like they had a hypothesis, went and found some data to support it. The part that put me over the edge was that a single iphone app "cured" the problem for ski reports, but only for those areas with good AT&T reception. That's connecting a lot of dots to support their conclusion. Who funded this? Skiresorts.com (the iPhone app cited)?

So, do ski resorts exaggerate? Yes. Do they exaggerate more on weekends when there's more at stake? Who cares. Do people looking for random hookups in bars exaggerate? Yes. Do they do it more on weekends? Oh lord....

Hmm, you think we could get a government grant to do this study? I be the Dartmouth Prof. got a good pay off to do this study. Probably connected it to the BS data for Global Warming too.

It was probably privately funded. In the same way, much of the "debunking" of climate change is privately funded. Just as a hint, when a "scientific" paper doesn't mention the funding source, or it's some outfit that you've never heard of, it doesn't hurt to be skeptical. Garbage in, garbage out.