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Skating hopes diminishing By Susan Sandys
Susan.s@theguardian.co.nz
Adams calls P4 time, again
Ice skating in picturesque outdoor rinks set amongst native bush at Staveley is becoming a distant memory as each year passes. This winter, the rinks are once again unlikely to open. The last time they opened was 2015. “Climate change, I think that’s what it is,” spokesman Ivan Syme said. However, he is not writing off opening this year, hoping for a string of strong frosts. And he thinks the long-term climate pattern will swing round in future to give Mid Canterbury a good run of skating years once again.
Aged 70, he remembers another warmish period of weather about 40 years ago when the rinks did not open for seven years in a row. Syme visited the rinks yesterday to view how the ice was building up after three frosts in a row. The air temperature dipped as low as -3°C yesterday morning. “It didn’t freeze all night that was the problem,” Syme said. In June there had been one strong allnight frost where the air temperature got to -4°C. “You have to get a week of them, not just one frost. [It would’ve been looking good] if we had of got a few of those,” he said.
And while it was good to get three frosts in row to yesterday, there was still not a lot of ice, with less than one inch having built up on the rinks. “It doesn’t look as though it is going to freeze tonight,” Syme said. Contributing to the warmer conditions was a lack of snow on the hills. While Mt Hutt has had a good season, there needs to be good snow depths down to a low level to lower night-time temperatures. Last time the Staveley Ice Rink opened, it attracted huge crowds with up to 400 visiting each day. It was considered one of the biggest days in the history of the facility, which was built by locals in 1949.
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