I was planning on doing a pre-ski-season story on the effect of the drought on ski area’s snowmaking, but Molly Rains of the New Hampshire Bulletin did it first, and did it much better. Her article (you can read it here) touches on the possibility that for a variety of reasons, climate change might force the whole idea of the Northeast ski season to change.
Right now the general plan for most areas is to make a ton money during Christmas break and school vacations, break even otherwise, and mostly give up after early March because people are thinking of warm weather. But consistently crappy starts to snowfall mean Christmas isn’t what it once was and intermittent warm rains kill the traditional habit of piling up snowmaking early and nursing it for the season. So, as the article headline says, “To keep skiing the East through droughts and warming winters, we may have to rethink ski season.”
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