BOLTON, Vt. – Oh, the bare ground looks just frightful, some white stuff would be delightful. The chair lifts are ready to go. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

With apologies to Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne and their 1945 hit, “Let It Snow,” New England ski resorts are making snow where and when they can, wishing Mother Nature would help.

With the month on track to see the lowest snowfall of any November on record, New England ski resorts that have invested in expanded and upgraded snowmaking in recent years are glad they did.

Bolton Valley ski resort got a foot of snow the day before Thanksgiving last year, an early start to a season that ended up fizzling out, with warm weather and rain plaguing the ski industry.

This year, the ground would be bare everywhere on the resort’s 64 trails if it weren’t for snowmaking on two of them. It was enough for Kevin and Meg Chen, both 34, of Seldon, N.Y., who were on the mountain for their first ski trip.

“It’s good,” he said.

“It’s OK, she said.

Even Jeanne-Marie Gand, a spokeswoman for the resort, acknowledged Monday that, with temperatures in the 40s, “It’s a little slushy today.”

But there was enough left of the snow made by the resort’s snow guns during some cold nights last week that a few determined skiers and snowboards were able to get some runs in.

New England resorts that had set their sights on a Thanksgiving opening this year reported similar results. Those with snowmaking equipment were able to compensate for Mother Nature’s failings.

National Weather Service statistics told the story.

At the weather station on top of Vermont’s tallest peak, 4,350 feet up Mount Mansfield, the normal average November temperature is 26 degrees. This year through Nov. 25 it was 34. Average November snowfall is 28.2 inches. As of Friday, just a half inch had fallen so far in November.

“The best way to describe November is variable,” said Bill Swain, spokesman for Sugarloaf USA in Maine, which had four trails and two lifts open Monday, thanks to machine-made snow.

Down the hill from Bolton Valley, a ski rental shop called the Ski Barn was closed Monday. “Sorry, due to a family emergency, the ski barn will not be open this weekend,” said a sign on the door, which gave a clue to when it was posted by saying, “Happy Thanksgiving.” It also contained a parenthetical phrase: “(No white stuff either).”

With nighttime lows forecast to be in the 30s for much of this week, little new snow was expected to be made before Friday, when temperatures are expected to drop. And all were hoping that preliminary forecasts of snow on the weekend would bear out.

“Yes, it’s a slow start to the season, but here in Vermont, very often we face these challenges,” said Myra Foster, spokeswoman for the Stratton Mountain Resort.

And for most resorts, Thanksgiving has never been considered as important a time to their bottom lines as the week between Christmas and New Years, the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday holiday in January or the February school vacation.

“We’re not going to have a ton of guests right now, even if we had a ton of trails open for skiing and riding,” said Karl Stone, spokesman for Ski New Hampshire.

Foster, like officials at other resorts that opened for the Thanksgiving weekend, said there was plenty of enthusiasm among skiers and riders.

“Snowboarders, they’re hard-core,” said Bolton President Bob Fries. Some didn’t want to wait for the lifts to start running on opening day and hiked up the mountain for an early run or two, he said.

“There were a bunch of snowboarders waiting for us to open. I told them skiers could start at 9, snowboarders at 10. They were like, ‘What are you, kidding?’ I was joking, of course,” Fries said with a smile.