This time last week temperatures were in the 80’s in the Northeast and the snow was melting away at a record pace. Now the temperatures are 60 degrees colder in the 20’s with fresh snow on the ground and more snow in the forecast.
It looked like the season was over as almost all the snow melted off the mountains as of Sunday. Then a strong cold front blasted through Sunday night plummeting temperatures and bringing a few inches of snow to the mountains of Northern VT and NH. The temperatures have been in the teens and 20’s on the mountains the past 2 days now freezing the remaining snow solid. But is it too little too late?
Stowe was scheduled to be open until April 22nd but it was announced Friday they would have to close 3 weeks early this weekend. That was the case for most of the resorts. Stowe dropped from from 110 trails to 24 in just a week and Killington dropped down to just 4 trails left. The fresh snowfall at Stowe was not nearly enough to repair all the damage done last week.
But some of the resorts decided they weren’t ready to close yet and are fighting back against Mother Nature. So far I have heard that Jay Peak, Sugarloaf, Sunday River and Loon fired up their snow guns Monday which is unheard of in March. Most resorts won’t make snow again this late in the season but Boyne, who is the owner of 3 of the 4 resorts making snow, decided it was a good investment. Below is a video released by Jay Peak (the only one not owned by Boyne) yesterday showing their snowmaking operations and you can see the snow falling as well.
This scene replaces the images of skiers in bikinis and board shorts last week, and tailgating in the parking lots. The temperatures will stay cold enough for snowmaking again tonight and more light snowfall will move in as well. A reinforcing shot of cold air will move in on Wednesday night with highs only in the 20’s again Thursday so you may see this again at Loon Thursday and Friday.
The snow that moves in tonight will mix with rain Wednesay on the mountains before going back to snow Wednesday night and Thursday. It will mainly affect the mountains fo Northern VT & NH into Maine. We could see a few more inches of snow on the mountains through Thursday continuing to make a valiant attempt at rebuilding the base.
Here is the snowfall forecast through Thursday showing up to 6 inches possible up near the Canadian border so Jay could get some help from Mother Nature to go along with the snowmaking.
It does look like too little too late with the severe melt-off last week at Stowe. I would think they will stick to the closing date of Sunday. It’s too bad because if last week hadn’t happened the first 2 weeks of April might not have been too bad. It looks like there could be few chances for snow in the long-range.
After the snow on Thursday the temperatures will stay cold through Saturday before warming up into the 50’s by the beginning of next week. Then it looks like there could be another shot of cold air as a trough digs into the Northeast by the end of next week. There will be a couple of storms that will move through bringing a chance for snow going into Easter weekend. The chance is there that one of them could bring a decent shot of snow.
For the resorts that are making snow and staying open the conditions look to be better the next 2 weeks than they were the last 2 weeks. The rest of them will most likely close soon as the natural snow won’t be enough to fix the damage done by the record heat in March. BA