The preparation of high quality alpine World Cup race ski pistes is a challenging task. Mainly improvements in producing mechanical made snow and piste preparation devices have enhanced the quality of race slopes.
Modelling snow and its energy balance is an useful information for further improvements. For example a model can answer the question of the ideal time of preparation, considering weather developments and the time until the race. Further, the model can answer the question of how much liquid water can be injected into the snow so that it will freeze during the night and improve the snow hardness. Such processes as well as the snow surface temperature are influenced by different aspects, altitudes and forest shadowing effects.
A forecast system, which is based on a mesoscale meteorological model forecast, driving an energy balance model for steep terrain that is coupled to a distributed snow pack model is used for snow predictions. With the model system, key parameters for the preparation are calculated with sufficient accuracy at several points along the race track.