CALGARY -- El Nino predictions for a warm winter be damned: Two Alberta ski resorts are defying Mother Nature today to become the first in Canada to open their runs.

What's more, both predict a long, snowy season.

"You get off the highway and come into the park, and it looks like January," beamed Chris Dornan of the Calgary Olympic Development Association, which operates Canada Olympic Park on the city's western edge.

Two hours west, Lake Louise is also boasting winter conditions that will make today its earliest opening -- a week earlier than promised. (COP's earliest season opener was on Oct. 25, 1997.)

Autumn has brought enough snow and cold weather to the Prairie province to allow snow-making machines to blow around the clock, creating a base typical for much later in the ski season. (There is about 50 centimetres of snow at COP and up to 40 centimetres at Lake Louise.)

"I think it says we're going to have a really good winter," said Matt Mosteller, senior director of business development for Resorts of the Canadian Rockies Inc., operating the Lake Louise ski area.

But climatologists are throwing cold water on the outdoor enthusiasts' excitement, predicting that the conditions will not last.

"With El Nino, the winter is milder than usual on the Canadian Prairies and the snowfall below normal," said Amir Shabbar, an Environment Canada specialist on recurring weather patterns. "What we're experiencing now on the Prairies, it seems like opposite to what one would expect from El Nino."

Mr. Shabbar said the low temperatures on the Prairies have nothing to do with El Nino.

"There has been some very cold wind in the high Arctic, and we had this high-pressure cell that established itself there. And then it just trapped that cold air and brought it further south."

The folks at COP are not too worried about El Nino.

"We're okay now because these past two weeks have basically set us up for the season," Mr. Dornan said.

"It's going to take some significant temperatures to reduce this base."