– Story by Will Mauney
Good Morning snow lovers! More snow has fallen across the region overnight with tons more on the way. If you were at a resort this weekend you no doubt experienced some great conditions and amazing weather. We had the best of both worlds here in NC with snow all day Saturday and sun on Sunday which made for some great skiing and snowboarding. The crowds were indeed large at every resort in the Southeast with ski schools and slopes reaching their capacity into Monday. Overall a great President’s Day weekend at my resort. Sure it was busy, but hopefully folks enjoyed the snow and weather despite the chaotic atmosphere most resorts experienced with all the traffic. I woke up this morning to another 5 or 6 inches at my house near Sugar and after researching some of the resort totals found that Sugar was only reporting 4 inches on their website. The CoCoRaHS report from the top of Sugar reported 4.5 inches, but I talked to a few people at the ski school this morning that said they’ve really got around 6 or 7 inches at the bottom and probably more like a foot at the top. It is windy this morning so some of that is blowing around, but regardless it’s another powder day at Sugar and Beech.
Beech’s CoCoRaHS report was 6.1 inches, but they also will have more than that drifting around. Canaan Valley and Timberline Resort also received 7.9 inches overnight with snow continuing today!
Brad’s Forecast:
Brad Panovich started his Skier’s Forecast video off this morning by saying that the snowy, northwest flow snows that we’ve been experiencing for the last month will continue for the next month! He quickly adds a statement that he’s now said a few times this season and that is, "…we could measuring some of these in FEET!"
We’re seeing some light to moderate snow this morning here in the High Country, but further north all of the West Virginia ski areas are seeing band after band of snow that is hitting the area. Brad explains that the cold air is picking up more moisture than normal from the Great Lakes because the lakes, which are normally frozen over this time of year – aren’t!
That moisture and snow will make its way into the North Carolina mountains with some additional accumulation, but the West Virginia and Maryland ski areas will see a MINIMUM of another, additional FOOT of snow between now and Thursday AM, and Brad’s thinking it could be two feet!
His 48 hour snowfall forecast is for 4-6" of additional snow into the North Carolina Mountains and 15-20" of new snow for the WV ski resorts. Brad singled out Snowshoe Mountain and stated, "Snowshoe, count on getting another 25" of snow!"
Since this weekend is our SkiNC / Beech Mountain Summit weekend, Brad mentioned that as of right now that he’s holding to a 40% chance of snow for Saturday. He added, "Don’t be surprised if we don’t update that on Thursday morning for additional snows."
Canaan Valley and Timberline just broke the 200 inch mark for the season and after the storm this week Snowshoe should be right there with them with around 200 inches of snowfall for the season and we’ve still got another month to go!
Cold Today!
It’s definitely cold out there today. Temperatures are in the single digits at many resorts and with a few wind advisories it looks and feels a lot like Wednesday did during the blizzard conditions we experienced last week. We are finally getting a “lighter” snow. The kind you can brush off your car with your jacket and the kind that doesn’t slow you down on the slopes. It’s typical for the Southeast to get a lot of “wetter and heavier” snowfall and we’ve had our fair share so far. This happens everywhere and it’s due to the moisture content of the snow and the air temperature. Skiers and snowboarders want the light dry snow that we’re getting now because it’s easier and more fun to ride though.
So if you want to experience the best powder the Southeast has ever seen get up to the mountains this week. It’s not supposed to stop snowing for several days and we will be once again reporting huge snowfall totals for the resorts in the Southeast and Mid Atlantic. Check back tomorrow for more updates.
We’re on day 79 and there are 58 more days of opportunities to enjoy the snow for the 2009-2010 ski and snowboarding season!
That’s it for today. 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]