To say that it is brisk this morning is an understatement. Temperatures are in the single digits and teens for the most part at the ski areas. Coupled with the winds, and it feels even colder. Check out the weather station atop Beech Mountain.
Temperatures aren’t going to change much throughout the day, so if you are headed out MAKE SURE TO BUNDLE UP. Sugar Mountain has a nice warning notice up on their site informing people that a frostbite warning is in effect. Days like this can be pretty gnar with the cold, wind, and snowmaking. My buddy told me you couldn’t pay him to go out today and ride. I’d definitely go. Just need to have the right gear!
Once again this morning, the resorts in the northern portion of the region are reporting some natural snow. Here are those numbers:
Wisp Resort: 5″ in the last 24 hours, 7″ in the past 48 hours
Canaan/Timberline: 6.1″ in the last 24 hours, 9.4″ in the past 48 hours, and 10.7″ in the past 72 hours
Snowshoe Mountain: 3″ in the last 24 hours, 5″ in the last 48 hours
Winterplace: 1″ in the last 24 hours
It should be a fun mini-pow day up that way, but cold. The guy who does the snowfall measurements in Canaan posted this:
Light snow continuing with widespread blowing and drifting snow at daybreak. Windy and +2F at 7AM. A challenging task to measure total new snow and snow depth.
An additional several inches of snow will fall today and tonight up at those resorts, and it looks like some snow is possible today and tonight for the North Carolina resorts as well. Nothing major, a couple inches, but it’ll be nice to see the cams bathed in white tomorrow morning across the High Country. It’s actually been snowing pretty steadily already this morning around the Boone/Banner Elk area according to Mike and my co-workers.
Regardless of natty snow, everyone is killing it with snowmaking right now thanks to optimal snowmaking conditions. The weather really is perfect right now. Below are the latest forecasts from Brad Panovich and Herb Stevens and they talk about just how good it is right now.
This prolonged shot of Arctic air is coming at the perfect time. A week of almost around the clock snowmaking should produce some fantastic conditions for the upcoming weekend and for the MLK weekend next week. I’m looking forward to riding Saturday with sunshine and packed powder conditions.
Just a heads up, several resorts have temporarily closed off some trails in order to blast them with snow. So, don’t be alarmed if you see that the open trail count has gone down a bit. They’ll be back open in the next few days in addition to even more runs. I’m thinking we might see a couple of resorts get to 100% open, which would be awesome after the slow start to the year. That’s just a hunch though.
Enjoy Hump Day everyone! And stay warm!