THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501210207
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
The contrast is stunning.
In the West, some ski resorts are measuring their base depths in feet - up to 21 feet. In the East, however, many resorts are having trouble coming up with enough inches of snow to muster a claim to a single foot.
For the past week, temperatures that soared to summerlike levels - backed up by sometimes-heavy rain - vaporized much of the snow that skiers expect to find on the slopes in what should be the heart of the ski season.
Shrunken piles of manmade snow snake up mountain sides that are otherwise brown and barren. Cross-country skiing has been virtually wiped out.
``It's the thermonuclear meltdown - the TNM,'' said June Brinkman, a spokeswoman for the Massanutten Resort near Harrisonburg.
``Almost every year there is a mid-January thaw right around Martin Luther King Day and a mid-February thaw right around Presidents' Day,'' Brinkman said. But this one has been something else.
Still, thanks to early-season snow-making, Brinkman's resort wasn't wiped out. ``We've managed to hold on to four trails, but we are very thankful cold air is coming back.''
Seasonal weather has returned throughout the East, and with it - and some snowfall - many resorts that had been closed will reopen today.
Homestead and Wintergreen in Virginia were among those that closed. Homestead reopened Friday and Wintergreen expects to reopen by Sunday.
``We had a 25- to 35-inch base,'' said Homestead ticket agent Tina Brinkley. ``But then we had 2 to 4 inches of rain in like a day and half, two days. Plus, the temperatures have been in the 50s during the day.''
With the return of cold weather, at least at night, snow-making has resumed.
``We're going to be able to make snow now all the way through the weekend and into next week,'' said Joe Stevens, spokesman for the Snowshoe/Silver Creek resort in West Virginia.
Two inches had fallen at Snowshoe by Friday afternoon. In New England, a final soaking of rain overnight is expected to change to snow in most areas today. Snow and flurries are forecast at least through Wednesday.
Repairing the slopes is just part of the problem, however. The other - and perhaps bigger - challenge is repairing public perception.
``You're only as good as what happened yesterday, and this time last year we had sub-zero temperatures and 30 inches of snow out in the woods,'' Stevens said. ``. . . When it's not cold in Virginia Beach, people are out playing golf. They can't fathom the thought of just six hours away there is 30 inches of snow.''
Even in Maine, the warm weather took its toll.
``This is probably the most dramatic thaw that I can remember,'' said Skip King, who has been working at resorts in the Northeast since 1987. ``The only (thaw) that I can recall that was of like this was in the '80-'81 season, and that one came later, in February.''
With the return of cold weather, Eastern resorts are collectively mounting the biggest snow-making effort since the dawn of that science.
For instance, Sunday River's snow-making system, which can spit out 170,000 cubic feet of the white stuff per hour - enough to fill a football stadium in three days - is running full tilt.
If the season has been a major disappointment for skiers in the East, it has been a financial bust for resort operators.
The East's largest resort, Killington in Vermont, had opened all but one of its 152 trails before the Great Thaw. By Tuesday, 35 runs were open. Half of Killington's six base lodges closed - there wasn't enough snow left to carry skiers to them.
``Any time you lose that amount of terrain that quickly, it's devastating to skier visits,'' said Ken Beaulieu, Killington's news bureau director.
Killington normally benefits from being one of the highest resorts in the East, but not this time.
``Our high elevation did us in,'' Beaulieu said. ``There was a severe weather inversion, and we had much higher temperatures up here. There was pretty much a 20-degree difference. And we were socked with warm, southwest wind. It was a double-whammy that really sucked up the snow cover quite quickly.''
Despite that, ``We are certainly not panicking,'' Beaulieu said. ``We're only a third of the way through the snow season, but the best snowfall months at Killington are February and March.''
Meteorologists are blaming the stark contrast between East and West on El Nino, a big pool of warm water in the Pacific that has brought devastating rains to California and helped warm much of the nation by keeping the jet stream and frigid Arctic air far to the north.
In the mountains of the West, however, it's been snow, snow, snow.
``It's a case of a little too much of a good thing all at once,'' said Peter Loughlin, event and promotions manager at the Kirkwood ski resort in California. ``These conditions are fantastic. I'm from the East Coast, and I've never seen snow like this in my life.''
From Jan. 4 to Jan. 18, snowfall totaled 16 feet. ``We saw the sun for the first time the other day, and we didn't know what it was,'' Loughlin said. The record annual snowfall for the 23-year-old resort came two years ago when 75 feet fell, Loughlin said. by CNB