I know we’ve got a lot of readers/viewers of this website who are ALL anxiously awaiting the 2023-2024 Ski & Snowboarding season to get started. Trust me, nobody wants that more than all of the ski area operations teams.
Photo up top is from this morning at Massanutten Resort!
Late Friday evening I took a quick tour of ResortCams.com (Ski Cam Links)
and at that time I saw some chatter over on the new SkiSoutheast Discord Channel https://discord.gg/skisoutheast where some were claiming snowmaking was happening at some of the ski areas south of Snowshoe, West Virginia. Well, they kind of were, but mostly not. Sugar Mountain Resort DID fire up the guns towards the middle section of Upper Flying Mile, but as far as we could tell from the base and summit cameras, that only lasted a little while.
As of this morning at 8am, the temperatures are JUST hovering, painfully above where we need them to get the snowmaking crews fired up in earnest. INTERESTINGLY, the temps ARE cold enough in Virginia this morning where we are seeing the snowguns firing again this morning!
Bryce, Massanutten and Wintergreen are ALL making snow this morning with temperatures in the low to mid 20s, while down in the North Carolina mountains things are a notch milder at 30-31° and no snowmaking is going on.
Where we ARE seeing lots of snowmaking happening again this morning is at Snowshoe Mountain’s 4848′ elevations, where it is 19° at 8:15am this morning.
Other than Bryce, Massanutten, Wintergreen, Canaan Valley Resort and Snowshoe Mountain – none of the other resorts are making snow. With temps hovering at 20° this morning at Timberline Mountain, we are not sure why there is no snowmaking happening there.
COLDER AIR IS ON THE WAY THIS WEEK
The really good news is that cold temps are on the way. We may see some additional snowmaking at the resorts mentioned above, but every ski area may join in on the fun at least by Monday evening as temperatures are forecasted to get into the teens and low 20s across much of the higher elevations. The even better news is that it looks like those colder temps will stick around all week at least through the forecast period that we can trust (through Friday).
THAT will make for 2-3 days of dedicated snowmaking days and nights and we all know that Cataloochee and Sugar Mountain can make that window work to get the core slopes open to get the 2023-2024 ski & snowboarding season officially started.
Before parting today, I thought this quick video that Nathan and Justin of Snowshoe Mountain’s Mountain Ops and Snowmaking crew provided was pretty cool. Post your questions and they will answer them?
Until next time,
THINK SNOW!
THINK COLD!
Also click here to Join Us on our New, SkiSoutheast Discord Channel. It is a GREAT way to meet new snow loving friends and shares experiences, ask questions and more!
email me as you like at [email protected]