‘Old-fashioned’ winter: New England skiing enjoyed a banner season. Was it an outlier?

“This past season was the best, with a few natural snowfalls mixed with cold temperatures to produce artificial snow,” said Brenner, head of the Eastern Massachusetts Cross-Country Skiing’s youth program. “The winters have been tough over the last five years. The previous few winters saw dismal conditions with multiple cancellations and closures from warming temperatures and rain events. This past season was the best it’s been in a while. The weather really cooperated.”

This surprisingly colder winter delivered mounds of abundant snow compared to recent years. The Weston area, right outside the I-95 loop, received about double the snow from last winter — roughly 26 inches.

New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine saw many more feet of snow. That’s still not quite up to normal levels, but the welcome colder winter days and snowy conditions, including the swath of 4 to 8 inches of late-season snow that blanketed the northern tier in late March, have been a bonanza for the New England ski industry and other winter recreational destinations that have had to deal with a warming climate the past several decades.

For Brenner at EMXC, as the snow piled up, so did his enrollment numbers.

Dave Lacombe, the snow surface manager for Killington, New England’s largest ski resort, summed it up in one word — “Excellent!”

“We had the old-fashioned Vermont winter,” Lacombe said. “It’s different this year,” he added. “We’ve already beat our five-year average, which has been 197 (inches)." This year, by mid-March the resort had already hit 225. “We didn’t have any major thaw events until March.”

February snow this year outpaced February 2023 by 100 inches, according to Killington.

Whereas most New England ski resorts were forced to shut down weeks earlier during previous snow droughts, this year, more than two dozen are staying open at least until mid-April.

Across the Connecticut River, Loon Mountain in Lincoln, N.H., saw nearly 4 feet of snow in February alone, according to spokesperson Taylor Siewierski, who called it “a big month for us.”

“Natural snowfall has been pretty good this season, and man-made snow production was great, making snow at a much quicker pace thanks to consistent cold temperatures,” said Jared Emerson, head of mountain operations at Saddleback Mountain in Rangeley, Maine. The lack of warm weather and rain during the 11 weeks running from mid-December through the first week of March, he said, “was an improvement over last season when we saw rollercoaster temperatures.”

The lack of a major thaw was a rarity at a time when climate change is altering New England’s weather patterns. Even along the Route 2 corridor in Massachusetts, it was a banner year for Wachusett Mountain.

“We’re staying open until April 6 this year, and we still have about 35 to 40 inches of base on the trails,” said Chris Stimpson, spokesperson for Wachusett Mountain.

It was a far cry from last winter in New England, when many slopes were bare and the ski season rather dismal.

“Last year, we had to close in March due to a full meltdown at the end of the season,” Stimpson said.

Of the past 50 years, the winter of 2023-24 took the most dramatic turn. It was the warmest on record for the Northeast, dating back to 1896 (when data were first recorded), averaging 5.4 degrees above the 30-year norm (1991-2020) and was nearly 8 degrees above the 20th-century average.

Last winter was also the first time New England’s average season temperature remained above the freezing point across all the major locations in the region, finishing at 32.1 degrees from December through February.

That was not the case this season. The colder months really made it feel like winter had returned. Average temperatures in every New England state came in just below the 30-year average - the average across New England this past winter was just 21 degrees, more than 6 degrees colder than last year.

Decades ago, Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in New Hampshire and a popular winter recreation destination, would freeze a foot and a half deep or more. More recently, ice depth has averaged between 6 inches and a foot. In the previous three winters, the lake’s broad - its deepest, most open part - didn’t freeze at all.

“But it finally occurred this past winter,” said Capt. Michael Eastman, coordinator of enforcement, safety, and registrations for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

“It was definitely an above-average season regarding snow,” said Jodi Gilbert, operations manager at Bear Rock Adventures in Pittsburg, N.H. “We started snowmobile rentals in late December versus mid-January or later in previous winters.”

But a warmer March, in line with more recent trends, ended Bear Rock’s season in the same mid-March timeframe they’ve grown accustomed to.

Coming off such cold and snowy conditions, this March was warmer than average - running 3 to 7 degrees above the 37.3-degree norm - closing the window on usable snowpack and eliminating many natural trails where snow machines can’t reach, adding stress on resorts to produce more artificial snow.

Businesses that cater to traditional winter sports and activities are hopeful that this winter wasn’t an anomaly - a blip in an otherwise overall warming trend.

It remains to be seen. Although it was colder and snowier than years past, this winter was still slightly above New England’s average temperature, meaning it was still a much warmer winter than generations before us experienced.

Gilbert can recall only one time in the past 20 years when snowmobiling outfits like Bear Rock were busy through April.

The average temperature across the Northeast has increased significantly since records began in 1895, pacing at an increase of 0.4 degrees per decade, in large part due to human-caused climate change. However, the sharpest rate of increase has occurred since 1980, averaging about 1 degree each decade. And that includes our most recent colder winter season.

This warming trend doesn’t mean that every winter is guaranteed to be unusually warm, just that the number of cold winters is on the decline.

What’s most alarming is the steady decline in deep, cold New England winters - the kind of lengthy subfreezing temperatures that keep ponds nice and frozen for days on end, and ski runs thriving with solid snowpack.

Warm winters threaten businesses that rely heavily on Mother Nature. The overall warming trend has naturally led to a decline in ice formation and thickness during the winter months across New England. Warming temperatures have led to later freeze dates and earlier ice-outs and breakups, increasing the danger of winter sport accidents.

Snowmobile thrill-seekers have struggled to find consistent areas with enough snow and ice thick enough and safe enough to traverse.

“There has been a lack of soft snow across much of New Hampshire’s most popular snowmobile trails over recent years, leading to more injuries and, unfortunately, fatalities with changing snowpack and ice conditions,” Eastman said. “Less snow and thinning ice have led to a decline in snowmobilers all around.”

According to NOAA, lakes in New England are freezing about one to two weeks later and that same ice is thawing about 10 to 20 days sooner compared to the early 1900s. That means some areas in New England have about a month less of ice to enjoy. Coastal New England, especially, is seeing more of an aggressive decline in ice days. Hundreds of ponds and lakes across the state of Maine have seen ice thaw over a month earlier in just the last two decades.

“Snowmobiling clubs in Southern New Hampshire, near Manchester, used to thrive. But in recent years, trail clubs have gone defunct or are combining with other clubs to travel north,” said Eastman. “Even pond hockey clubs have had to relocate games and events due to unsafe ice conditions.”

At the Weston Ski Track, a home training course for multiple Olympians over the decades, navigating a changing climate with years of inconsistent winters means increasing reliance on snowmaking like the large ski operators. Some places unable to supplement with snow machines have been forced to close over the years.

Moving forward, many hope New England will see enough variation in its winters so outdoor activities can be enjoyed with enough snow and deep cold.

Eastman says, “It’s an uneasy feeling thinking what winter may look like 10 years from now.”

Ken Mahan can be reached at ken.mahan@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @kenmahantheweatherman.