Story by Mike Doble – [email protected]
Halloween is a time where we normally worry about lions and tigers and bears. These next few days we’re going to be dealing with Sandy – a monster, freakish hurricane that isn’t all that scary in terms of its status AS A HURRICANE. Instead we’re going to be dealing with a combination of events that may bring what many meteorologists are already calling a "historic event".
Meteorologist Brad Panovich just updated his latest BLOG and video about Sandy the Autumn Storm. Kenny Griffin posted that over on the Video Forecast page and I just brought it to the front page. (See the video link in the Photo of the Day header and at the bottom of the front page of the site. …or click here https://www.skisoutheast.com/videos.php
Needless to say, this thing may be HUGE! As of Sunday at 11am, here’s what Brad Panovich just provided us. While New York needs to be preparing for historic flooding, the mountains of North Carolina through West Virginia and Maryland need to be preparing for a HUGE-MONSTER wind event and as all of this moisture from Sandy teams with a large area of colder, winter-like air – we will need to be prepared for heavy, wet snow!
TWENTY-TO-THIRTY INCHES OF SNOW FOR WEST VIRGINIA???
Brad’s latest updates which come off of the NAM and NAM4 models are showing that the heaviest snows will be at the peak of the storm on Tuesday. However, the event will begin early on Monday and the heaviest accumulations will be for the Smoky Mountain higher elevations on Monday. Ober Gatlinburg, Cataloochee and Wolf Ridge could see up to a FOOT of SNOW by late on Monday while the ski communities of App, Sugar and Beech would see closer to 2-4-6" of snow. Of course that can all change.
https://www.skisoutheast.com/videos.php
Monday night into late Tuesday and early Wednesday is when the heaviest snow will accumulate and Brad is thinking that we’ll be seeing some FREAKISH snow totals around Snowshoe, Canaan, Timberline, into Winterplace and Wisp in Maryland – where perhaps 20-30" of snow will fall.
While all of this SOUNDS great, remember that along with all of this heavy, wet snow will come HIGH WINDS that may reach gusts up to 80 mph at the high elevations. In other words, this won’t be the "let’s go skiing" kind of snowfall.
A lot can happen and we’ll be updating often during the storm. You can check back HERE or the best way to update you is for you to join Twitter and get over to www.Twitter.com/skisoutheast and FOLLOW US. We will tweet out messages as often as we get new news!
PS: ALready heard from a little birdie that Sugar plans to make snow late on Sunday!
Feel free to email me at [email protected]