BY CHRIS LAWRENCE
CHARLESTON — The state’s largest ski resort has reset its planned opening day for the 2023-24 ski season to Dec. 1.
Snowshoe Mountain Resort hopes there will be enough cold weather by then to create the right series of circumstances to allow for snow-making.
Some natural snow wouldn’t hurt either.
“We’re definitely seeing some cold in the forecast for the days leading up to that,” said resort spokesman Shawn Cassell.
Cassell said the number one thing they need, besides natural snow, is cold temperatures.
“That’s the main thing, cold and dry preferably for snowmaking. If we have high humidity we need temperatures in the mid-20s. If we have very low humidity, which isn’t very common around here, we can make snow up in the 30s,” he explained.
But so far, they’ve only had one cold snap that enabled any measurable snow-making on the mountain. One weekend there was actually snow falling on the mountain, but ironically Cassell said that did very little to help since the natural snow was so wet.
“There’s a lot of science behind this stuff,” he added.
Resort staff is encouraged by El Nino conditions. According to Cassell past El Nino years have been slow to get started with warm temperatures early on, but things have historically gotten way better than usual in the middle of the season.
