Turn the Calendar, Grab a Coat and Hit the Slopes

Officials at Whitetail Resort, just across the Maryland border in Pennsylvania, plan to kick off ski season this weekend thanks to a "colder than average November" and the likelihood of "real nice wintry-looking weather coming in for December," said Don MacAskill, the resort's general manger. The resort typically opens for skiing the week before Christmas, he said.

"We're eager to get things open and get our guests on the mountain," MacAskill said. "Typically, there's a lot of enthusiasm in the early season to get out on the snow."

What is not so typical, he said, is to have a cold-enough end to November to allow such an early ski-season opening. Below-freezing temperatures in November helped resort officials start producing snow Nov. 21-23, two weeks before normal, MacAskill said.

"It has to be at or below freezing to be able to make snow," MacAskill said. "We make it right on the trails themselves. It's basically a function of pumping water out of snow guns, and it crystallizes in the air and falls on the slopes."

Still, resort officials might want to curb their enthusiasm before natural white covers the ground, experts said. The absence of La Niña or El Niño, the leading indicators of seasonal weather patterns, makes it harder to project what the winter will look like.

"There is a degree of uncertainty when it comes to long-range forecast," said Christopher Vaccaro, a spokesman with the National Weather Service. "The climate patterns can't be accurately forecast beyond a week or two. . . . It could be mild one week, then we could have back-to-back snowstorms."

The region can expect more scattered rain showers today. Tomorrow and Wednesday are expected to be mostly dry, with highs in the low 50s followed by a cold front Friday and through the weekend.