Temperatures are dropping today, some snow will fly on the northern mountains, and we have some pretty good snowmaking windows over the coming days that dozens of ski areas are going to start jumping on as soon as this evening. We will see openings this week at up to 5 different ski areas and I'll provide our subscribers with our forecast for what the likely target dates are and how likely they might make those dates. Even if early season skiing and riding isn't for you, this really is a big step forward for the Northeast ski industry every fall and especially so now given the slow start that we've had.
The 5 most likely contenders for opening this week are Sunday River, Killington, Bretton Woods, Wachusett, and Sommet Saint-Sauveur (just northwest of Montreal). These are the 5 that have a history of going for broke in order to open ASAP with minimal terrain. While dozens of other ski areas will make snow, their opening plans generally require multiple trails open top to bottom and that's not in the cards until maybe the following weekend and possibly not until Thanksgiving-ish. Change does seem to be in the air, finally, but there are no solid signs yet of the next deep cold hit.
Let's start off with a loop of temperatures in the Northeast from Monday through Friday from the National Blend of Models.
We have 3 strong overnight snowmaking windows beginning tonight for many ski areas and temperatures in some cases will reach the teens during this week and that means great production. This cold hit is actually overperforming what was in the models last week so it's a nice surprise that is creating some opening opportunity. By Friday morning however it looks like we'll widely lose snowmaking temperatures except overnight at high elevations in northern areas and maybe a quick blast on Sunday morning.
Right now next week doesn't look very productive but models show an odd blocking pattern and maybe something frees up as that's too far out for confidence. The modeling actually looks wonky which is almost always a sign of some big changes to come, but the primary blocking pattern is near certain and different isn't necessarily better.
