NH experiencing an ‘exceptionally snow free’ winter

By FRANCES MIZE

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 01-18-2023 6:49 PM

EAST CORINTH — The mid-December snowstorm was a head fake at Northeast Slopes, which bills itself as the “oldest continuously operating ski slope” in the country.

“That snow groomed out nicely,” said Wade Pierson, ski program coordinator at the nonprofit hill which has hosted skiers since 1936. “But shortly after the 21st, it began to rain and thaw and then rain and thaw some more.”

With the National Weather Service forecasting a snowstorm starting Thursday night, Pierson’s fingers are crossed for four of five fresh inches. But precious days already have been lost in what has been a fleeting season.

“It’s been a month now since we’re likely able to open again,” he said. “We’ve had fewer ski days over the last two years than we’ve had in quite awhile.”

Northeast Slopes, which relies on donations and a volunteer staff, can’t persevere through warm weather on the shoulders of the winter season like other Upper Valley ski areas, such as Dartmouth Skiway or Whaleback, can. Those mountains have snowmaking equipment.

But per the mission of Northeast Slopes, reduced operating expenses help to keep costs low for skiers, who can buy a full day T-bar and rope tow pass for $15 on the weekends, and $10 on Wednesdays.

The ski hill’s “real” snow, emphasized on the website, is marketed as a draw. But with “real” snow in short supply, the chances of skiing there, which has been happening each winter for decades, remain at the mercy of increasingly wily weather.

This season’s lack of snow “is just depressing,” New Hampshire State Climatologist Mary Stampone said. The central part of the state is tracking at 10 inches below normal snow levels since Oct. 1.

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New Hampshire is experiencing an “exceptionally snow free” winter, she said. But Stampone could soon be searching for another descriptor. The exception may slowly be morphing into the rule.

“We’re to a point now where these abnormally warm winters aren’t so abnormal,” she said.

Anticipating an uphill battle, other ski areas are less willing to wait around for Mother Nature.

The Oak Hill Cross Country Ski Center in Hanover is preparing to install snowmaking equipment next year to give the area more backbone against the warm weather that has interrupted the Dartmouth Winter Carnival and other ski events in the past few years.

“This winter is particularly bad, but its been trending this way over the last couple of decades,” said Peter Milliken, the board chair of Friends of Oak Hill, a nonprofit raising funds to revamp the nordic ski center. A good portion of the practices for the Ford Sayre Ski Club, a longtime youth ski program, have been canceled or moved from Oak Hill due to thin snow cover.

“We’ve skied there seldom this year,” Milliken, who is also a volunteer ski coach, said.

Instead, Ford Sayre travels far afield for sufficient snow, or runs “dry land” practices with sneakers and ski poles.

“That’s something you do in the fall and you hope to not do in the winter,” Milliken said. “This year most of our practices have been on foot. And it’s demoralizing. You know as a fifth grader, doing that once in a while is fine. But doing that all the time is really frustrating.”

He hopes that making snow at Oak Hill will, in addition to getting the ski program back on its skis, spare the fifth graders some angst.

The process is water intensive, and often requires receiving a withdrawal permit from the state, but it doesn’t suck the water up forever. After snow falls back onto the slopes, most of it melts back into the watershed.

“You’re basically just borrowing water,” said Ted Diers, administrator of New Hampshire’s Watershed Management Bureau. “You put it back. It’s just delayed a few months.”

Diers is hesitant to say that snowmaking is of ecological benefit, “but generally speaking, as long as we don’t drain a stream dry, it’s largely benign,” he said.

Still the lack of natural snow will be felt beyond the slopes and outside of the ski season.

Spring snowmelt is crucial to the longevity of groundwater resources, which are especially important in New Hampshire. Over half the state is dependent on groundwater for their drinking water supply, either through private wells or municipal distribution, according to data from the state’s Department of Environmental Services.

Melting snow provides a “really big pulse to our groundwater that recharges things for the summer,” Stampone, the state climatologist, said. “If it warms up and we don’t really have a big snowpack, but the ground is still pretty hard, you lose a lot of that water into the surface water system as runoff.”

New Hampshire is expecting an increase in precipitation overall during the winter and spring, but that’s not forecasted to continue into the summer, when water demand is highest, she said.

“When you hear us say like ‘Oh the state’s getting wetter,’ all that wetness is going to happen during the cold season, but as those cold seasons warm, what could have been snow will more often be rain. All while the warm season is getting warmer too,” Stampone said.

“This is just going to make the soil drier in the summer, while increasing the water demand from the atmosphere, and from us humans.”

And that kind of demand can’t be met simply with snowmaking equipment.

Meanwhile, since it relies on “real snow,” Northeast Slopes says on its website that it will remain “closed until the next snow falls.”

Frances Mize is a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at fmize@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.

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