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OGDEN -- Ogden City officials announced Tuesday the city's Winterfest 2012 celebration has been canceled due to weather conditions and current forecasts.
The free annual community event had been scheduled for Jan. 27 and 28 in downtown Ogden.
Event coordinators cited Tuesday a lack of snow accumulation in December 2011 and January 2012 as well as anticipated upcoming rainfall as the reason for the cancelation. The event is expected to next take place in January 2013.
"We want to express our appreciation to all of the organizations and supporters involved, and we look forward to next year's festivities," said Kevin Ireland, Winterfest event coordinator.
Event coordinators expected attendance in the thousands. Planned events included snowmobile drag races, human dog sled races, a polar bear swim, skijoring and a snowmobile freestyle stunt team performance.
In addition, The North Face has postponed the first stop of its Masters of Snowboarding series. The series is the largest open, big-mountain snowboarding competition in the country with three stops and more than $50,000 in prizes.
The opening event was originally scheduled for Jan. 19-21 at Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort; however, the Utah stop will be postponed "in order to provide more time for optimal competition riding conditions to develop," according to organizers.
"It's important for us to maintain the integrity of this event, and to do that we have to wait for more snow," said Bryan Barlow, director of competition. "Snowbird is a great partner of ours and we're happy to get to work with them later in the season when conditions are more favorable."
The tour will now kick off Feb. 14-17 in Crystal Mountain, Wash. The championship event will be held at Snowbird April 12-15.
