NEW HARTFORD, Conn. — It's mid-February, and only our second snowstorm of the season is on the way.
So far, it's been a winter with a lot of mild weather and rain.
Connecticut winters are warming, and the many rainstorms we've seen this winter are symbolic of that change.
Despite that, Connecticut's ski industry is going strong.
"We had a week of cold weather and we buried the place," Bob Switzgable, owner of Ski Sundown in New Hartford said. He's been on the hill for a long time. He started as a snowmaker there 40 years ago. Now, snowmaking is key to keeping the mountain running.
Last year was the warmest winter on record in the Hartford area.
"We’re getting shorter windows of opportunity of cold weather, sometimes it is intensely cold weather that comes in, then it gets warm again," Switzgable said.
This year brought the wettest December-January stretch.
"The way I view it, we’re witnessing the disappearance of snow in southern New England," Stephen Young, a professor at Salem State University in Massachusetts, told FOX61.
He's studying the changes in snow cover, in other words, snow on the ground each winter.
"The long-term trend is definitely decreasing snow cover," he said. The data is getting a lot of attention. "From Boston, through eastern Massachusetts, much of Rhode Island, central Connecticut, New York City into northeastern Pennsylvania, you’ve got this area that’s a global hot spot for decreasing snow cover."
The study looks at how snow cover has changed since the year 2000.
In that time, Connecticut has lost an average of 25 days per year with snow on the ground. Massachusetts has lost 20. In northern New England, the thaw isn’t as steep, but there is a decline: 5 to 10 fewer days with snow on the ground.
This change is as New England sits on the edge of the typical winter snow cover.
Farther to our south, it's very typical for snow to fall, then quickly melt. Here, that melting is happening faster than in previous decades.
"Not to mistake weather for climate. We can have a cold winter, we can have a blizzard, it doesn’t mean the world is not warming up," he said.
But the snow that falls doesn’t last as long as it used it.
This winter, the record rain combined with early-season snow to create historic flooding across New England.
"If there’s a lot of snow on the ground, those rainstorms can double the amount of water that flows out of the mountains, when it melts the snow that’s already on the ground" Professor Young added.
Here in Connecticut, record flooding of rivers like the Yantic near Norwich was driven by the combination of melting snow and drenching rainstorms.
Back at Ski Sundown, the conditions look like mid-winter, despite the climate challenge the industry is facing.
"We’re in southern New England, so we know we’re going to rely on snowmaking," Switzgable said, investing in nearly 200 snow guns, and a sufficient water supply. They can draw up to five million gallons per day from the nearby MDC.
Sundown has invested heavily in technology: about 200 snow guns
"We’re going to have a good quality product, and we can hang onto it for a really long time," even though snow that falls in your backyard may be fading faster.
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