Disrupted climate disrupts the U.S. ski season

Katherine Bagley.

The typical scene at New England ski resorts over Christmas vacation—madhouses filled with students as young as 2 or 3 packing onto bunny hills while parents head to higher elevations for their first runs of the season—has been replaced by a sobering reminder that climate change is already taking a bite out of winter.

Most mountains in the northeast this December are covered in brown, not white. Killington Ski Resort in central Vermont has 24 of its 155 trails open. Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine has 19 of its 160 trails open. Temperatures on Christmas Day are expected to hit 60 degrees in parts of New England.

Read Katherine Bagley’s story on Inside Climate News - “As Climate Change Imperils Winter, the Ski Industry Frets.”