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75 °F Forecast | Road Cams Saturday, March 12, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend March 11, 2005 Since you asked Winter weather isn’t too predictable Can you tell me where I can get a true report on current weather conditions at the Mount Ashland ski area. Several times I have called their snow phone (482-2754) and listened to a recording that talked about "light" winds and "low overcast." When I get there I find the "light" winds are howling and the "low overcast" is dense fog with visibility of 100 feet or less. I would have much more empathy for the Mount Ashland Association if I were told the truth about the weather conditions. — Gene T., Rogue River If you’ve spent much time on the mountain, Gene, you know how fast winter weather can change, especially on stormy winter days. Rest assured that there’s no intent to delude with falsely cheery information, says Rick Saul, the ski area’s marketing director. "We report what’s there," Saul says. Advertisement "On some days we could probably change the snow phone (information) every 20 minutes," he says, but that still wouldn’t guarantee that the conditions when you arrived on the mountain would bear any resemblance to what you heard when you called the snow phone from Rogue River. The ski area updates its telephone reports and information on its Web site ( www.mtashland.com ) at 5, 8 and 10 a.m. and at 1 p.m. on days when there is night skiing (Thursday through Saturday from January to late March). To help skiers and snowboarders judge whether they want to make a trip to the mountain, the ski area created a section on its Web site to define the terms that are used in the weather reports. "Light" winds, for example, are defined to be 6-20 mph. Saul notes, however, that on a raw winter day a 20-mph wind can feel like a howling gale. Our advice is: learn to love the bad weather, Gene. That’s where the snow comes from, after all. Or be your own meteorologist. If it’s blustery where you live, you can almost guarantee that it’s far worse on top of a 7,500-foot mountain. Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by e-mail to [email protected] . We’re sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg Slippers Student Loans afsa teleconferencing Memory Foam Mattress Advertisement s