Update: Boonville Snowfest Officially Cancelled Due to Lack of Snow

Sad news to report, there will be no Boonville Snow Festival this year.

Blame Super El Niño

The Winter Festival was all about celebrating Boonville's heritage as the "Snowmobile Capital of the East." The event reliably draws tens of thousands of enthusiasts to compete in the Adirondack Cup Racing event.

Racers would fly across the half-mile ice-covered racecourse and be cheered on by a massive crowd of spectators.

However, the event will not carry on as planned due to one crummy thing: Mother Nature.

Although Central New York dealt with an arctic blast and back-to-back storms that dumped plenty of snow in the region just recently, organizers say the sudden warm and rainy weather has made the racing course unsafe.

"We are sad to inform you all that we are officially cancelling Snowfest for 2024," the Facebook page announced.

For any of our gracious sponsors, we are happy to refund your sponsorships if you'd like, or we will carry them over to next year's event for advertising. Please reach out to our page or to your contact person on the Snowfest Board.

This winter has seen the formation of a Super El Niño, which is blowing warmer than average temperatures into the region and buckets of rain instead of the beloved ice and snow needed for these wintertime events.

Read More: Is Central New York in Store for a "Super" El Niño? 

Event organizers had been hopeful the Snow Festival would be able to continue this weekend because of all the recent winter-like weather, that saw plenty of snow and ice to pad the tracks. Unfortunately, the return of all the rain and unseasonably warm temperatures has dashed those hopes.

"Snow" Go

As originally reported last week, organizers said there wasn't enough snow to even make the snowbanks that are integral to abiding by the safety protocols. Not to mention, with temperatures well above freezing through the remainder of the week, the ice needed for snowmobiles to race upon will make a slushy and unsafe mess for racers.

They announced on Facebook at the time:

Unfortunately we have made the difficult decision to cancel Snowfest for this weekend.

With the lack of snow, we won’t have the snowbanks which are a huge part of our safety protocols. With the high temperatures and rain in the forecast, it is not safe for racing.

We are extremely disappointed and hope that we can reschedule for next month. We are reviewing the possibility of a postponement date. We will make an announcement as soon as we have decided if we can hold this on another date or cancel completely.

We will confirm next week after the next Board Meeting if there is an alternative date for the event.

Thank you all for your understanding and support.

At the moment, no concrete timeline has been revealed and all the event website says is that "new dates will be announced soon."

The event has also launched an aggressive marketing campaign to let as many snowmobiling enthusiasts know the event will not happen this weekend.

So spread the word and once we know the rescheduled date, we'll be sure to let you know.

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