Snow dearth spooks ski areas Warm days delaying winter sports starts

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. – With temperatures sliding lower in the Northeast, many alpine ski areas are back making snow this week, preparing for the essential free-spending holidays from Christmas through New Year’s.

For snowmobilers, cross-country skiers and the businesses that serve them, however, there are only flurries in the short-term forecast and people are still whacking golf balls on a few dry fairways.

While the solstice, the Northern Hemisphere’s shortest day, comes Friday, the Northeast hasn’t been chilling under your grandfather’s cold weather pattern, a phenomenon scientists predict will hold through winter.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects a December, January and February about 2 percent warmer than the 30-year average, citing both the oscillation of the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific, aka El NiIno, as well as long-term climate trends.

“The prediction for a warmer than normal winter season does not mean we won’t have winter weather,” said Mike Halpert, lead seasonal forecaster at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. “What it does mean is that on average this will be a milder than average winter across much of the North, with fewer arctic air outbreaks.”

That means snow-dependent businesses have to work harder and hope for the best.

Daytime highs approached 50 degrees last week in the Adirondack village of Lake Placid. The outdoor oval speed skating track overlooking Main Street used its refrigeration system to make ice for afternoon practices and evening public skating. On Whiteface Mountain 10 miles away, about 100 snow guns, silenced for a few days last week, were firing Tuesday with temperatures in the high 20s. There were 11 trails and four lifts open.

The National Weather Service snow map showed up to 20 accumulated inches at the northern edges of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, but most of New York and New England were bare Tuesday.

“There’s certainly a lot less snow falling now than there was in the ’60s and the ’70s,” said Sandy Caligiore of New York’s Olympic Regional Development Authority, which manages venues from the 1932 and 1980 Olympic Games. “We’re seeing it here, where the winter starts a little later and it ends a little sooner.”

Last week, New Hampshire released $1.4 million in grants to snowmobile clubs for trail grooming and maintenance. But so far, there’s no snow to groom on the more than 7,000 miles of trails in the state.

“It’s been so warm that the ground hasn’t started to freeze,” said Bernie Ross, president of the Umbagog Snowmobile Association in Errol. “We need snow and lots of it, but we need some cold, too, to freeze up the streams and open areas where there is still water.”

The lack of snow and snowmobilers is hurting northern towns dependent on tourism dollars, including Pittsburg, Errol, Colebrook, Lancaster and Berlin. There was little snow all last winter, which put a dent in snowmobile registrations.

“Registrations were down last year,” said Fish and Game Maj. Tim Acerno. “So far this year, we’re down 10,000 to 15,000 and I’ve never seen that much of a drop in one year.”

In Maine, Bath Country Club had 75 golfers show up on Sunday and is planning a scramble tournament Dec. 31 if the weather holds. Nonesuch River Golf Club in Scarborough, which opened for a weekend during a thaw last January, has now been open during 11 months in 2006 – a first.

Toddy Brook Golf course in North Yarmouth closed Dec. 3 and reopened last Thursday. On Saturday, more than 100 rounds were played.

“It looks like we’ll be open through Christmas and beyond, weather permitting,” said Mike Smith, general manager at Toddy Brook. “If we’re open on Jan. 1, that’ll be 11 straight months. That’s unheard of in Maine.”

Melissa Rousseau of the Bousquet Ski Area in Pittsfield, Mass., said the resort is closed and had no snow on the ground approaching the Christmas weekend that typically accounts for one-third of its annual income. “Normally, at this time of the year we would have, during a weekday, maybe 25 employees and on a weekend maybe 100,” she said.

“If we can make snow, we’d probably be able to make maybe 50 percent of what we would normally make,” Rousseau said. Bousquet plans to reopen Thursday.

In Vermont, where snow-covered mountains are a $1.5 billion-a-year business, everyone from lift operators to restaurant owners fears a winter of disappointment.

In Stowe, Vt., only seven of Stowe Mountain Resort’s 48 trails were open Monday, with blue skies and temperatures in the high 40s.

“I know a lot of people are praying to the god of their choice” for snow, said Mike Colbourn, vice president of marketing and sales. “One big snowstorm and we’re in business. It’s going to happen. It has to happen.”

On Tuesday, it was snowing lightly, and Stowe had seven trails open.

Associated Press writers John Curran in Montpelier, Vt., Rodrique Ngowi in Boston, Katharine Webster in Concord, N.H., and Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.