Snowology Weather & News

10/29/2025

This is a pre-season Snowology Storm Watch! We've had 3 runs in a row of the GFS today showing a storm with back end and high elevation snow, with the potential for lake effect (primarily off of Lake Ontario) and upsloping into possibly Friday. This is 7 full days out to the start of this system so just to be clear, modeling will change and this storm could disappear, but we like the setup.
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This comes from the trough that is expected to deliver a punch of cold next week, though yesterday it was looking like just a brush for Northeast ski country, but today we can see a tug on that trough from a meandering low crossing into the South that could give it a piece of energy that trough needs to tilt negatively and spin up a coastal storm.
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The cold looks to be firmly behind this system rather than feeding into it so we'll likely start out as r@!n everywhere, but in the Fall we often see the white stuff on the back ends, and with a damp environment plenty of moisture for an extended back end event.
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The ECMWF doesn't see this yet, but the model seems drunk at that range and it's not generally great at seeing real storms like this at 7 days out, but the ECMWF ensembles are showing some hints of this along with even stronger support among the GFS ensemble members. Therefore we like our chances just enough to call it a "storm watch" from this distance.
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If it does happen we'll cover it in more detail, but without any ski areas operating we'll focus more on the joy than the action, but there is the possibility of some low-speed quads carrying the most dedicated up and then down (we're talking uphilling).

10/27/2025

We provided a prediction for when snowmaking might start in this morning's weather post also covering Halloween.

10/27/2025

We're debuting the Snowology Cando-O-Meter and eyeing snow/snowmaking behind this storm! 👉 snowology.com/halloween-update-1/

10/27/2025

This is your annual reminder that Mount Washington, the entire Presidential Range, and other high elevation mountains across the East often experience much more severe weather at the summit than at the base. This weekend alone over 2 dozen hikers had to be brought down on the Cog Railway from the summit. State Park facilities at the summit are now closed for the winter season and will not open again until May!
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As a rule of thumb, you can expect temperatures to decrease by 3F-5F for every 1,000' of vertical rise and along with that substantial increases in both wind and even humidity creating notable hypothermia risk. Oh, and hiking alpine terrain in sandals at any time of year is also a huge no-no for a variety of reasons, but we're likely past that now. Even when it is 60F at the base you will likely find conditions near the summit that require technical gear without shelter.
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Read more about today's incident from WMUR: www.wmur.com/article/unprepared-hikers-cog-railway-mount-washington-nh/69158741

10/26/2025

Mother Nature is still just teasing us with light coatings of high elevation snow, and the action in the Longfellows of Maine may continue through Monday.
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While it's been chilly, temperatures are not yet cold enough make snow. Behind the Halloween storm (we'll cover that later, but it's all r@!n on the front end) we do expect cold air to get sucked in behind it and possibly we'll see some activity from snowmaking ops on the slopes around November 4th. We might also experience a decent back end event depending on how that all plays out.
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POWDER TO THE PEOPLE!

10/26/2025

Every now and then the forces of nature remind us of how small we are on this blue marble. As Hurricane Melissa bears down on Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean we stand witness to the terrible beauty and power of Earth's atmosphere, the magnitude of which will be thrust on infrastructure and people who not prepared for its full fury.
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As we watch this event unfold, we hope and we pray for the well-being for those who must endure it.
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IR Loop Credit: Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA)

10/25/2025

Keystone became the first to open for the season in North America by calling a surprise opening with 45 minutes of notification for skiing from 3PM to 6PM today in order to edge out Arapahoe Basin who announced earlier today that they would open on Sunday at 8:30AM.
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This was unexpected, in fact Keystone is only operating off the top of Schoolmarm requiring an upload and download rather than going top to bottom, but in the East we consider that to be legit.

10/24/2025

This is a good example of ambient moisture that modeling misses in a chilly wet environment with daytime warming which our coverage recently said was a possibility on the back end of this clipper. Apparently the snow levels in NY and VT are in some cases below 3,000' also so we're seeing flakes on many summits this afternoon. The composite radar is first followed by the high resolution NAM3K modeling from the last model run for the same time period.

10/23/2025

We're declaring this the first natural snow turns of the season up on top of Mount Washington by Jamie 'Sundaze' Ruginski. Jamie hiked up the Cog early this morning to seek out about 3" of freshies with much larger drifts. Just 5 days ago he also staked out his spot and scored the first lift serviced turns of the season at Ski Ward. If you want to go sliding with Jamie you need to do your best to keep up! We'll see if he can score a hat trick on opening day with first chair also.

10/23/2025

It's time to start talking about snowmaking and opening. Here's what Snowology's crystal ball is saying. 👉 snowology.com/snowmaking-opening-outlook-10-23/

10/23/2025

That's a sight for sore eyes. Winter is loading...

Woke up to that first real taste of winter ❄️
Whiteface got its first significant snowfall last night, and the stoke is officially rising. The countdown to opening day starts now. ⛷️🏂

📸: Whiteface ASRC

10/22/2025

We have an actual clipper coming through with cold air currently wrapping around from the southwest but the environment is only cold enough to produce snow at very high northern elevations currently. We'll see some decent amounts of lake effect r@!n in NY from this system, and possibly some small accumulations of snow on the summits of Whiteface and the Northern Greens but it seems unlikely to produce accumulations in excess of 'fast grass' conditions by Thursday morning.
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Wind will eventually transition to coming from the northwest through the weekend and temps will get colder but the precipitation is expected to also dry up in the process, but sometimes in the fall we see modeling fail to pick up on the extent of ambient moisture from recent storms so keep your eyes out for some high elevation snowy surprises.
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Unfortunately we still do not see weather capable of supporting lasting manmade snow. The weather for the next week does look chilly but probably too borderline for production. We are however getting closer.