It once again feels like Groundhog Day in New England as it’s raining for the second straight day. The start of the season for the Northeast was dire, as rain and warm weather kept mountains from blowing a significant amount of snow. In the middle of December, a significant snowstorm came through, leaving behind multiple feet of snow. Since then, all of the natural snow has melted due to numerous bouts of rain and warm weather.
The current situation is probably best described by a Killington Resort social media story from yesterday. Killington has the most amount of terrain open in the Northeast, with 63 trails and 12 lifts running. Unfortunately, their trail count last week was over 110 trails. While the snow is currently soft, visibility is not great, and it will freeze up later this week.
On Saturday, I got to ski at Sugarbush Resort and witnessed the melting happen in person. The mountain actually had most of its terrain open earlier in the week, but consistently warm days, and rainfall on Saturday, led to a rapidly melting snowpack.
After this rain storm, some snow is expected later this week, and snowmaking temperatures will be making a return. Things do tend to improve historically in later January in the Northeast, and the long-range forecast is an improvement. At this point, I might start doing some snow dances again to help turn the tide.
Image Credits: Pico Mountain, Stratton Mountain, Killington Resort, Ian Wood of Unofficial Networks
