A number of people emailed us over the weekend SURPRISED by all the snow we had last week. WHERE HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN? The first significant snow of the week feel LAST weekend and stuck around until the more substantial snows hit later in the week. Most of the High Country of Western North Carolina saw anywhere from 2-4" of snow a week ago and then this past Friday we saw another 6-9.5" of snow across the region! Most of the High Country saw 6-7", while Beech, Sugar and the higher elevations received about 9". …AND MORE SNOW IS ON THE WAY!!!! Before I get into that, I had some fun this past Saturday as I had to go down to Hickory to help my oldest daughter move. I keep a pretty decent utility trailor over near the foot of Beech where it ALWAYS seems to get more natural snowfall. Anyway, I went and dug it out of the snow Saturday morning and pulled close to 8" of snow down the mountain. Of course we got a lot of surprised looks because literally three miles south of Blowing Rock was dry with no snow. As I pulled up in her driveway down in Hickory we were met with an impromtu snowball fight as nearly 5-6" of the snow survived the trip.
That reminds me of a story that Joe Stevens told me a couple of years ago about how they loaded a dump truck full of snow from Snowshoe and trucked it down to Charleston (I think). Come to think of it, THAT would be a great way to promote our mountains! Simply truck a load of snow down the mountain from time to time with signs all over it to promote the ski areas! Maybe if we stick a good looking guy and gal on a snowboard or something… I’ll have to think about that one 🙂
MORE SNOW IN THE FORECAST!
As I was driving home late Sunday my wife got a phone call from one of great friends who resides in Lexington, South Carolina. She called to ask "what in the world was going on with all of this snow we are getting…" She had already heard the forecast for Monday evening into Wednesday of this week. Yep – it calls for more wintry weather. I say "wintry" because it may start out as light rain or sleet and change quickly to snow this evening. We’re going to have to get all of our work caught up on the website so that we can get our "Team Meteorologists – Brad Panovich and Matthew East" to begin providing us with regular updates. As of this AM, our local, mountain, weather gurus are calling for something somewhat different that the National Weather Service. Ray Russell is calling for rain to snow today and 40 mph winds tonight. He’s calling for Tuesday snow and falling temps with 2-4" of snow only in the "snow-prone" areas along the Tennessee line. Though somewhat similar, I think we’ll opt for the National Weather Service forecast which reads as shown below:
HEAVY SNOW EXPECTED IN THE NORTHERN MOUNTAINS OF NORTH CAROLINA TUESDAY AND TUESDAY NIGHT…
A COLD FRONT WILL CROSS THE NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS TONIGHT. BEHIND THE FRONT…NORTHWEST WIND WILL TRANSPORT COLD…MOIST AIR UP THE WESTERN SLOPES OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS…RESULTING IN WIDESPREAD SNOW SHOWERS BEGINNING TUESDAY MORNING. UP TO FOUR INCHES OF SNOWFALL IS EXPECTED BY WEDNESDAY MORNING.
As for today, the NWS forecasts:
Today: A chance of rain showers, snow showers, freezing rain, and sleet before noon, then rain showers. High near 42. South wind between 5 and 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Little or no ice accumulation expected. Total daytime snow and sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
Tonight: Rain showers before 1am, then a chance of snow showers. Low around 28. Breezy, with a west wind 7 to 10 mph becoming west between 19 and 22 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible.
Tuesday: Snow showers. Temperature falling to around 27 by 5pm. Breezy, with a west wind between 16 and 22 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.
(There a LOT less wind in the NWS forecast and more widespread snow. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that the moisture holds off til the cold hits, etc!)
THANKSGIVING IS LOOKING GREAT AS WELL!!!
If you’ve been holding off about planning your Thanksgiving Weekend getaway – waiting on the weather or gas prices, etc – quit putting it off and make plans to be here in the mountains! The weather is looking GREAT for Thursday with highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s and clear skies. The weekend after is looking quite nice as well! So make those reservations and plan on hitting the slopes!
Here’s some notables about the FOUR NC Ski Areas open for Monday!
Appalachian – 33° – They made snow last night but the guns are off and grooming is taking place this AM and the conditions there should be AWESOME! They have 8 of 10 trails open and both terrain parks. Day skiing only right now.
Cataloochee – 35° – They made snow last night and also have 8 trails available. They are open for day and night skiing as well.
Ski Beech – 34° – They made snow but the guns are off now. Conditions were reportedly GREAT this weekend. They are still having issues with their QUAD lift but they are running 4 trails serviced by 3 lifts for day skiing only.
Sugar Mountain – 29° – They too made snow but the guns are off now. They plan to crank them back up as soon as the temps allow later today. They have 9 trails open for day and night skiing as well.
Be sure to click over to www.SkiSoutheast.com to see more snow and more reports on all of the ski areas of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic!
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