I’ve got a bunch to cover today as it SNOWED yesterday, last night and it is still flurrying a bit this morning. However before I get into that news, it looks like I and my girls will be eating Tudor’s Biscuit World dinners soon as Appalachian State held off Marshall’s Thundering Herd in the CIT last night 80-72 as Donald Sims played like he was already in the NBA. He was 8-of-8 from the free throw line and scored 30 points. Marshall’s head coach, Donnie Jones was said to have remarked, "Sims was like Steve Nash as he ran the show out there. He did it all."
I listened to much of the game and for a while I thought it was going to be a blowout as App State was up by 19 points at one point in the second half, but Marshall came thundering back and made it a game in the end.
Tudor’s Biscuit World is well known in West Virginia…right up there with Golden Delicious Apples…and our buddy Joe Stevens and I had a friendly wager on the game and we’ll be looking forward to some good eats.
…and now back to our regularly scheduled programming…
IT AIN’T OVER TIL HE SAYS IT’S OVER!!!
It snowed again last night. I was still in my office on Monday afternoon when I noticed that it was lightly snowing. I figured we’d see a dusting mixed in with some rain. Around 6pm or so I happened to look out again and was shocked to see that it was snowing pretty hard and an inch of snow had already blanketed everything. It snowed most of the night (though lightly at times) and we’re still seeing some snow showers this morning.
I’ve already heard on the local radio that Sugar and Beech were reporting 3" of new snow although our snow reporting peeps and CoCoRaHS guys, including Gil Adams of Ski Beech are reporting an official 1.8" of new snow. There’s a Bakersville station reporting 2.2" of new snow. One of our long time on-snow reporters lives atop Sugar Mountain and he’s reporting 2" of snow as well…so we’ll go with that. We’ll look in on what Sugar is reporting in a bit.
Blowing Rock is reporting .5" of new snow and Mars Hill (home to the already closed-for-the-season Wolf Ridge Ski Resort) is reporting 1.0" of snow.
As has happened many times over the last couple of years, none of the Virginia reporting stations or resorts are reporting any measurable snowfall.
West Virginia’s reporting stations at Davis are reporting a TRACE of new snowfall at this time (8am) and Snowshoe is reporting 1" of snow.
None of the Maryland reporting stations are sharing any snowfall as well so it looks like this particular snowfall has stayed mostly to the south in the Western North Carolina mountains.
We did get one report from Erwin, Tennessee this morning where 2.3" of snow fell at the official CoCoRaHS station and Sevierville, Tennessee (close to Ober) is reporting a TRACE of new snow.
IT AIN’T OVER TIL HE SAYS IT’S OVER – PART DEUX
The "HE" in this case is Appalachian Ski Mountain’s Brad Moretz. Brad told me last week that if they got opportunities they would make snow into April. Last night the temperatures dipped to 26° at the Blowing Rock, NC ski area and he held true to his word and App MADE SNOW last night. According to their snow report this morning they layed down about 2" of the manmade variety as their minumum base depth GREW for the first time in eleven days. They are now reporting a groomed base of 57-88" and 100% of the 11 trails and three terrain parks open for day sessions.
Sugar Mountain is open for both day and night sessions this week. Remember that Sugar is calling it quits for the season this Sunday. We showed how nice things looked on our report on Monday AM and with a little natural snowfall this morning things will be that much sweeter at Sugar today. (I can never resist the opportunity to use "sweet" and "sugar" at the same time.)
Sugar is open with 100% of their terrain (20 trails and snow tubing). We did spot some thin coverage areas coming down the right side from the mid-station lift late yesterday, but some grooming and 2-3" of new snow will have them looking great for today.
"It ain’t OPEN til the DOT says it’s open"
With all of this wet weather lately we’ve seen some rock slides in the area. Last week some giant boulders slid across the roadways going up Grandfather Mountain and caused some delays where Grandfather Mountain had to do some blasting and rock removal to allow their visitors to drive to the top.
Now a few days later, NC Hwy 194 is CLOSED between Elk Park and Banner Elk due to a rock slide. The NC DOT reports that Hwy 194 will be closed until at least Thursday, March 25th. There are alternate routes from that direction to get to Sugar and the High Country so just consult MapQuest or your navigation system.
WEST VIRGINIA SKI RESORTS
Snowshoe Mountain is reporting a 40° temperature reading at the base of their mountain this AM (45° up top) and yet they received a wet 1" of new snow. That takes Snowshoe to the 229" mark of natural snowfall this season. They are open with 35 trails today. Laura Parquette writes, "An inch of snow fell across the mountain last night, and the snow continues to fall as we speak! We can probably expect the snow to turn to rain on and off throughout the day today, but we may see more snow accumulation tonight. We do still have plenty of snow across the majority of our slopes, and the spring skiing and riding has been some of the best in recent memory."
Timberline is OPEN but they haven’t updated their or any other reporting service since the 20th. We’re assuming they will be open with 36 trails. We called up there yesterday and were told that they had not been updated with a snow report either so we’re all assuming.
Wisp Resort – They are skiing and riding on 17 of 32 trails for today and they are open for day and evening sessions. Tubing and ice skating are open as well as their mountain coaster.
WE’RE NOT OPEN TIL WE SAY WE’RE OPEN…(You’re seeing a theme by now, right?)
None of the Virginia ski areas are open today. Massanutten and Wintergreen do plan to be open this weekend. See Monday’s post for operating schedules.
AFTER ALL THAT SNOW IN DECEMBER AND FEBRUARY, HOW LITTLE HAS FALLEN IN MARCH?
Over the last couple of days a few of our readers asked "I know the mountains typically get a lot of snow in March but so far there hasn’t been much. Any ideas as to why?" Another, more intelligent question was, "I know that the ski resorts got dumped on in January and February this year. How much (snow) has fallen in March?"
To the first question – our answer is "Um, we don’t know."
To the second question try this example on for size:
Davis, West Virginia is where the most natural snowfall fell this season within our ski area coverage. David Lesher of Davis operates an official weather center and he recorded 68.7" of snow in January after 48.4" of snow fell in December. February was even snowier with 116.6" of natural snow!
So far through 23 days of March? 6.3" of snow!
December 2009: 48.4"
January 2010: 68.7"
February 2010: 116.6"
March 2010: 6.3"
Weird, but true.
Beech Mountain was the snowiest spot in North Carolina this season (ski areas) and they saw the following:
November 2009: .5"
December 2009: 22.6"
January 2010: 33.6"
February 2010: 44.1"
March 2010" 11.8"
That’s it for today. Go brave the elements and have a great day. We understand more 60° temps are forecasted for Wednesday after these last two snowy days.
We’re on day 116 and there are 21 more days of opportunities to enjoy the snow for the 2009-2010 ski and snowboarding season!
Go enjoy the snow! Check out the Snow Report at https://www.skisoutheast.com/skireports.php and please send us your favorite ski photos, ski videos, trip reports and comments to [email protected]