There are two very important things needed to go cross country skiing. One is cold. The other is snow. And right now, Minnesota is seriously lacking in both.
With temperatures near 50 degrees in late-January and early-February, it's becoming more and more difficult to preserve the snow that's on the ground at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis which is hosting the World Cup Cross Country ski race.
There are hundreds of the best skiers on the planet and thousands of international spectators in attendance.
"We are watching the forecast everyday, " said Claire Wilson, Executive Director of the Loppett Foundation. "It's not necessarily trending in our favor."
She said snow machines aren’t effective at anything warmer than 28 degrees, so that's not an option. They are holding high school meets at the park, where 12-year old Zanna Turman took first place in the JV race for Washburn.
"The snow is very slushy," Turman said. "There's a lot of corners that were slushy, and it's really dirty too."
Wilson said the event was originally planned for March of 2020 but was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the International Ski Federation approached them about rescheduling she said it had to be in February, where they were all but guaranteed good conditions.
"There seemed to be no world where Minnesota would not have snow or at least cold enough conditions to make snow in January and February," says Wilson, echoing what almost anyone in Minnesota would predict.
The event has been widely promoted as Minnesota native and Olympic champ Jesse Diggins is skiing well on the tour, and has expressed her excitement to come home to ski in front of her home state fans.
Wilson said it's a blow personally for her as well, as so many have volunteered hundreds of hours to get ready for the big event.
"But I think all of us, you know, feel it," she says. "Feel it personally, but also as wonderful as all this is, this is a cross country ski race. I think we're all feeling really bereft to be losing winter, to be facing a time period where we can't get our kids out on snow. And I think we're as worried about the planet as we are our event."
Ironically, they are holding the event in a climate-conscious way.
"You know the event is going to have a total offset through a sponsorship with Xcel (Energy), which is powering wind credits," Wilson said. "We have a fleet of electric cars, and we are using reusable cups. We are doing everything we can to support sustainability as we still deep in the reality of climate change. We're doing a panel with (environmentalist and author) Bill McKibben to talk about protecting our winters and it's all a little ironic since we're sitting deep, deep in the reality."
The athletes are in North America and are waiting to hear word on what will happen. Wilson says they are used to skiing in a variety of conditions however.
"They've had everything from supremely cold conditions to loops similar to what we have right now, which is basically a ribbon of snow in grass," Wilson explains.
On Friday, she says they'll present a snow control report to the federation. It's up to the federation to decide whether or not there's enough snow to hold the event.
The event is scheduled to take place February 17 and 18 at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis. The National Weather Service's long range models don't go out quite that far yet, but the latest two-week guidance shows continued well above normal temperatures across Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.