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SAM Magazine—Dover, Vt., Nov. 22, 2016—Less than a week ago, the news about resort openings was a little bleak, with only a handful of areas able to start their jiminy esizeseason and several others postponing until winter weather showed up. Since then, temps have dropped, snow guns have fired up, and natural snow has accumulated at mountain resorts from coast to coast. For a majority of the continent, winter has arrived.

As of this morning, there were 23 open ski areas in 11 states across the U.S., and two open ski areas in Canada, both located in Alberta. By Saturday, the number of open ski areas in the U.S. will more than triple to 71, and a total of 25 states will welcome skiers and riders. In Canada, 13 more resorts in four provinces anticipate opening by Saturday.

Let's break that down.

The biggest winner in this glut of snow-going opportunities is the Northeast, which currently has two ski areas open—one in Vermont and one in New Hampshire. Come Saturday morning, skiers and riders will have 25 different areas to choose from across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York. As recently as Saturday, it was sunny and at least 60 degrees in most of those states—and then everything changed.

A lingering storm system dumped more than 20 inches of snow in 48 hours on Jiminy Peak in western Massachusetts. The many resorts along the spine of Vermont's Green Mountains were reporting around a foot of fresh snow from the same storm, spanning from Mount Snow in the far south all the way up to Jay Peak near the Canadian border.

The Southeast, Cataloochee and Sugar Mountain, N.C., in particular, flexed herculean snowmaking capacity and opened for the season on Monday, Nov. 21 after just a couple days of cold weather. Appalachian Ski Mountain opened today. Snowshoe, W.Va., is the only other resort in the region planning to open by this weekend.

The upper Midwest has been seeing cold weather and a bit of natural snow as of late, with four ski areas are already open. An additional 15 areas plan to open by the weekend in Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, and South Dakota. South of the Great Lakes, brief windows of snowmaking conditions have allowed for some to start laying down a base, but not quite enough to open for the season.

After an unseasonably mild autumn, winter has returned to most of the Rockies. Colorado currently has seven resorts open, and Sipapu, N.M., is also open. A dozen more resorts in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Montana plan to welcome guests by the weekend. The mountains in Wyoming have seen a fair amount of snow, but the state's biggest ski resort, Jackson Hole, has postponed its Thanksgiving opening.

Four resorts in the Southwest are open and six more plan to start spinning lifts by this weekend. The Lake Tahoe region is expecting a significant weather system this weekend that could drop a lot of snow, making for some deep early-season turns.

Timberline is the lone ski area operating in the Northwest right now, but nine others plan to load first chair by Friday. Snow is in the forecast for most areas, including Mt. Hood, Ore., through the rest of the week. Alyeska, Alaska, is looking at some accumulation potential by the weekend after a Thanksgiving opening.

And in Canada, Quebec will have three open resorts, Saskatchewan will open one, Alberta another three, and British Columbia will have five ski areas to choose from by this weekend.

This overarching shot of winter is a good sign for this time of year. In addition, all regions of the continent have seen the benefit of snowmaking at ski areas big and small. The arrival of cold temps and flying flakes couldn't have come at a better time leading up to Turkey Day, when winter starts for many skiers and riders.

Once again, this report is compiled using snocountry.com, and a bit of additional research. There are still many ski areas with planned opening dates that don't match what other media channels say, which is not a good message. We've said it before, but it's worth saying again—if there's any time of year to make sure every consumer resource has accurate information, it's now.