WASHINGTON — In an average year, Washington has had 4.2 inches of snowfall by Jan. 12, nearly a third of the yearly average of 14.5 inches. While you might not have noticed the difference in your day-to-day life, that margin can mean everything for ski resorts around the D.C. area, which were celebrating some of the first inches of snowfall all season on Tuesday.
The warm, dry winter on the East Coast has been driven, at least in part, by the strong El Niño pattern that is bringing more rain to the West Coast than it has in recent years.
“The historically strong El Niño is helping to drive the southern branch of the jet stream,” says NBC 4 meteorologist Matt Ritter. “It’s kept the arctic air bottled in Canada for most of the winter.”
Between Massanutten, Whitetail and Wisp — three of the closest resorts to Washington, in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, respectively — snow packs are hovering right around 2 feet, keeping many lifts and trails closed. But all three are open, making the best of what little nature has given, and doing the rest themselves.
“All guns that we can possibly have online are going at full-bore,” says Lori Zaloga, director of marketing at Wisp, of the resort’s snow-making equipment.
“We not only need cold weather, we need dry weather to make snow. “We’ve been taking advantage of this very cold and dry snap.”
Wisp also saw about 3 inches of snow Tuesday, effectively doubling the natural snowfall this season, and has more snow in the forecast this weekend. But the late arriving snow and cold weather forced the resort to open in late December, several weeks later than normal. Even now, only seven of 12 lifts are operating, servicing just eight of the mountain’s 35 trails and only one of its three terrain parks.
Similarly, more than half of Whitetail’s trails were still closed as of Tuesday, along with their half-pipe. At Massanutten, only four of 14 trails were open, even now, in mid-January.
“We were forced to open later,” says Zaloga. “Late December gave us our first opportunity for snow-making, so we opened a few trails around Christmastime.”
In the meantime, the resort has gotten creative to help cater to its clientele.
“The name of the game is weatherproofing for us,” says Zaloga, highlighting non-snow activities like the mountain coaster and ice rink. “We even opened up an 18-hole disc golf course, which we had never done before.”
But with consistent winter weather finally here, and another storm on the way, it may finally be time to get back to business.
“As we like to say, there may not be snow in your backyard, but there’s plenty in ours,” says Zaloga.
