Northeastern U.S. Weather

jamesdeluxe

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
Finally a bit of measurable snow for the northeast (with the Catskills in the wheelhouse); however, @jasoncapecod has a caveat for it.

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Jay Peak season to date (mid estimate 90% of reported) is 117 inches but 103 of that was before Dec. 16. The past 3 weeks have sucked big time: Jay 25% open today vs. 77% Dec. 16.
 
Last weekend still fell short of mid-December in open terrain, far short in northern Vermont. Sugarbush and Tremblant were the only areas I track more than half open. One third open was more typical, which is very bad for first weekend of January. But yes it did snow so I'm sure surfaces were greatly improved even though open terrain did not expand much.
 
We got a good bump in Ottawa two weekend in a row and areas north of the St. Lawrence River. Finally looks like Winter here. In the last ten days we've had temps closest to normal (ie. below freezing and minimums lower than -10c), so snowmaking have been working overtime to catch up.
 
2 feet of snow in north and central Vermont last week. Jay, Sugarbush and Killington are 90+% open, Stowe 84%.
 
Fun times. SAM (Ski Area Management) has a contest for snowmakers. Apparently at least partially a get out the vote effort. Greek Peak is part of the 8 selected snowmaking teams that have blurbs and Youtube videos.

Almost surprisingly Copper, Mammoth, and Panorama BC from the west are in there. Anyway, fun GP video. Harv can see Gore's team too...

SAM Snowmaker Competition page

 
Greek Peak won the SAM competition! Mammoth (@Tony Crocker) and Copper (@EMSC) clearly need to step up their video-making (or get-out-the-vote) game.

Their prize:
"HKD Snowmakers will host the winning team at its Canadian headquarters in Quebec City, Quebec, for two days of education and entertainment. The I AM a Snowmaker winners will be given the opportunity to dive deep into HKD’s best-selling products and learn how to maintain, troubleshoot, repair, and safely operate HKD equipment."
 
jamesdeluxe said:
Greek Peak won the SAM competition!
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That's just awesome. I viewed most of the vids and voted for GP myself. Best video of the bunch IMO and felt like a deserving resort even though I complain about their snowmaking at times.

The couple that owns GP has doubled down on putting money into snowmaking over many years now and clearly it's starting to work; being open early this season compared to nearly all other NY ski areas. Some of the SAM competitors may have great teams too, but get tons of easy $$ thrown at them. eg NY gov't $$ at Gore, US Ski Team $$ thrown at Copper, etc... GP has terrible weather and still getting it done in recent seasons.
 
Interesting. Historically Greek Peak management has been excoriated on these boards. Is there new management in recent years?
 
Tony Crocker said:
Historically Greek Peak management has been excoriated on these boards. Is there new management in recent years?
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Sort of, but at the same time not really :) Hope that clears it up.

GP was sold out of bankruptcy in 2013 to two businessmen. Much of the infrastructure was in bad shape at the time (including snowmaking). The two businessmen didn't always see eye to eye on priorities and eventually one (Meier) bought the other one out in 2019. While some $$ and work had been put into modernizing snowmaking, it wasn't until that 2019 juncture that they now have a very defined multi-year upgrade plan that has finally and significantly changed things.

There were hints of that better snowmaking in my last excoriation of GP in fall 2021 when they made tons of snow on multiple trails at the same time yet still did not patch things together enough to open for Thanksgiving. But with ever more upgrades they finally did open this year for Thanksgiving weekend despite the horrid weather in the east. If I recall, they were one of only ~7-8 NY ski areas open at the time. I've seen and heard many times about the current owners being all in on making things better over time. Tough gig to pull off though in that weather and economic region. So seems it took a full 10 years after bankruptcy to bring the snowmaking infrastructure up to speed. Now to work on the greasy lift sheaves...
 
On Tuesday, areas within an hour or so of the coast got 10-12 inches from a Nor'Easter, which usually happens a few times every winter but is becoming more of a rarity these days. Ripitz on NY Ski Forum (in his pic below) posted an excellent day-after report that showed approx. 1,500 verts of (x-c) skiable snow right down to the Hudson River.

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