The ski slopes are full at Snowstar in Adalusia, but maybe not for long. On Friday, a few dozen University of Illinois students took advantage of the last layers of snow remaining. It’s melting fast in this week’s warmer weather and there’s no way to replace it.

“Twenty-seven degrees is what I need to make snow,” Snowstar Manager Rod Leatherman told Our Quad Cities News.

“We want to make sure that our customers are safe and so we want to make sure we have plenty of coverage where we need coverage,” Leatherman continued. “We have to move some snow around. On the other side of the coin, we have to make sure we are not on it too much cause the heavy equipment is going force it to melt faster and so forth. It’s a balancing act and we do the best we can,” Leatherman added.

This is just the latest weather woe to impact Snowstar. First, an unusually warm December kept the facility from opening, which usually happens by Christmas. When snow finally fell in January, it came with dangerous cold.

“We actually had a couple days where it was too cold to even open because machinery doesn’t work at those temperatures, and we don’t want our employees outside in that kind of weather that’s dangerous,” said Leatherman.

The back-and-forth weather has been bad news for Snowstar’s bottom line. But the staff is handling Mother Nature the best they can.

“We’ll adapt and we’re still open, and that’s what I think the big thing is,” said Leatherman. “We want people to know that this weekend we will have everything open and up and running. (We) still have a good time. The vibe is still good out here.”