CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – As neighboring state ski resorts got significant natural snow earlier in the week, ski resort operators at nearby Wintergreen and Massanutten have experienced cold enough temperatures to test new snowmaking equipment.
The two area resorts didn’t get that big natural snow this time around and the resorts aren’t even open, but Accuweather long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok told Cville Right Now, “I look for a pretty good season setting up for the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.”
Neither Wintergreen nor Massanutten has an opening date, but Massanutten is having what they call a Mass Awakening where they’ll “wake up the mountain” this weekend with live music, films, items for sale, and a chance to pick up season passes.
A Massanutten update says the recent snap allowed them to test snowmaking “which includes several key upgrades throughout the summer months”.
A Wintergreen mountain update says they’ve “been testing out the new TechnoAlpin fan guns and they’re firing on all cylinders, getting us one step closer to turning on the big system”.
Pastelok said it’s a little early to really build slope bases at this time, “Because we can still get rain events and that can kind of spoil anything that’s kind of been laid down, and a little bit of a concern going forward in the forecast.”
That means those mountains like Snowshoe, Canaan, Timberline, Wisp, Beech, and others that got those big snows in neighboring states don’t have a significant head start on the season, but they do have a head start nevertheless.
“We’re not looking for extremely mild weather, but we can get some mild periods especially as we get up to the week of Thanksgiving.”
While that’s true about Thanksgiving, Pastelok said they were looking at new long-range models that came in Wednesday and, “We’ve noticed that very consensus showing of December, more cold coming into the picture especially in early and mid-December, and that would be a plus helping out going especially into the Christmas holiday, maybe providing enough base that things could look good all the way through the month.”
Pastelok said, “January may deal again with a little bit of icy mixture events which could be a negative.”
“But at the same time, I think it will be cold enough to make snow to refresh some of the slopes,” Pastelok observed. “So it still looks decent in January compared to previous years.”
“In February, we may get another burst of some storms, similar to what we saw last year,” Pastelok projected.
A concern, Pastelok noted is that “some of the forecast models are turning milder too quickly in February. Right now, we’re feeling that February is still colder, then in March it flips pretty fast. If you’re going to get your skiing in, you better get it in before March because it turns around pretty quick.”
One of the things Pastelok said will contribute to a good ski season in the mid-Atlantic is, “Not many monumental, big storms on the East Coast coming up from the South to produce a lot of snow at once, but we could see several systems coming through during the course of the winter season.”
He explained, “That’s the better ones because that refreshes the slopes, and it also makes it easier to get to the slopes. Big storms kind of deter people because initially they can’t get there, but these smaller systems will turn out similar to what we had last year I think will be helpful.”
