To keep skiing NH through droughts & warmer winters, we may have to ‘rethink’ ski season

Winter ski season is on the horizon, but New Hampshire is still deep in drought, putting some snowmakers at the state’s mountain resorts on edge.

With evolving technology and strategic snowmaking, the snowmakers said they expect to keep skiers on the trails this winter despite current water shortages. But like warming winters, recurring late-summer droughts are part of a larger climate change-driven pattern that has complicated the task of running a ski resort in the Northeast. While technology upgrades can help, experts said they also recognize that the industry is changing in ways that can’t be circumvented.

“Now we’re being limited not only by temperature, but potentially by water as well,” said Caitlin Hicks Pries, a Dartmouth researcher and associate professor of biology whose work