obienick;c-68335 wroteWildcat's south-facing low elevation neighbor (Black) just announced aiming to remain open 4 weekends after Wildcat closed!
Much has been made of Black’s south-facing slopes, but it doesn’t actually make as much a difference (for them) as you’d think.
For ski areas over 500’ vertical drop, they rank 18th when it comes to coldest slope temperature in open ski areas (32nd including closed) when accounting for base elevation, latitude and slope angle.*
Quantifiably, this results in being -61.75 degrees colder than at the equator, at 0 ft above sea level, on a flat slope.
Wildcat, for reference, isn’t much colder; -62.92 degrees colder than at the equator, at 0 ft above sea level, on a flat slope. Ranks 8th in the northeast.
For further reference, the line where you start to see noticeably more closed areas than open lies between Magic and Highlands Ski Area; about -59.45 degrees colder than equator, at 0ft above sea level, on a flat slope. (Ranks 70th/71st among both active and closed ski areas with more than 500’ vertical drop).
Not to say you can’t operate one below that line. Plenty exist still, including some big hitters like Bromley, Gore and Attitash to name a few.
*Asterisk denotes that only the 3 factors mentioned are included. Plenty of other factors (orographic lift, water basin, prominence, etc) can affect temperature or even just the quantity of snow too, but those 3 are the big ones and also happen to be the most quantifiable.
