A handful of ski resorts across northern Utah were forced to close Monday due to unusually high winds. Gusts reached 118 mph at Snowbird’s Hidden Peak. The resort closed all of its lifts Monday afternoon, reopening only half of them later in the day.
Snowbasin halted operation for all of its lifts. The resort's Jason Dryer explained the conditions worsened with elevation.
“We were seeing anything down low at the bottom of 50 to 60 mph, but up at the top of Mt. Ogden we got a recording as high as 91 mph,” Dryer said. Such sustained winds are unusual, he said.
“We haven’t shut down the resort completely for the day for a long time,” Dryer said. “We had a wind occurrence earlier this year that had us shut down for a few hours in the morning, but then we opened up and had a great day. It was actually a really good powder day.”
Snowbasin’s St. Patrick’s Day celebration will continue despite the winds, Dryer said. The National Weather Service has issued a high wind warning for parts of the Wasatch Front and the Tooele Valley.
A previous version of this story reported that an indeterminate number of ski resorts closed Monday. High winds forced at least 5 resorts in Utah to close fully or partially for the day.
