Story by Mike Doble – [email protected]
I began this morning with no internet connectivity; started updating with my smartphone and then all of sudden things came back up for me here at home. That got me to thinking that our ski resort communities are kind of in a "technical difficulty mode" of their own with a lack of cold weather and no snow to speak of. Hence today’s POD (Photo of the Day). It reminded me of those old TV Test Patterns that only the older part of our viewing audience will remember.
The bottom line is that we’re all waiting on some colder temperatures. Last Wednesday afternoon the temps flirted with dipping low enough to make snow and Sugar and Snowshoe cranked up the snowmaking equipment. We updated you guys that we just were not seeing things holding cold enough to continue that effort and unfortunately all our research and data proved accurate. The temps notched up just enough that the snow guns went back offline and that’s where we’re still at…waiting on the cold temps.
That IS the question of the last 48 hours via my personal email INBOX, so here’s the good news…
COLD AIR IS HEADED OUR WAY…
Enjoy your weekend. Take in some football games or even head to some of the ski areas that are open with their ice skating rinks (Sugar’s is open for certain). Maybe take in a hike as temps today and over the weekend will be in the mid 50s to around 60°.
The entire Southeast and Mid Atlantic WILL SEE some rain coming in on Sunday into Monday, with some of the higher elevations seeing that rain transitioning into snow sometime on Monday. Obviously that means that colder air is finding its way into the area. Lows Sunday and Monday night look to be dipping back to the mid to upper 20s.
That trend looks like it just might hold with lows in the 20s through Sunday, December 4th.
That’s the good news and it could be just GOOD ENOUGH to see those ski area snowguns firing at numerous locations around the region.
NOW HERE’S THE CATCH…
I took those temperature forecasts from the colder ski elevations of region. Unless those forecasted temps drop a notch or so, there will probably some ski areas that are able to make snow sporadically through this next week and some that won’t be able to.
If you guys were to check out most of the ski areas webpages you’ll see that most of the resorts are all suggesting that we just keep checking back daily to see what the latest news is. If the weather will transition just a notch colder we could see some good snowmaking ops.
…and that’s where we are right now. Sooooo, if you haven’t done so already maybe this would be a great time to start hitting the exercise equipment and get into ski and snowboarding shape.
In the meantime, you guys and gals should check out the snowmaking video that was sent in my Winterplace Ski Area. It provides some great insight into some of the newer technologies that are making snowmaking easier for resorts across the region. You can see that video and MORE at: https://www.skisoutheast.com/videos/
That’s it for today. Check back for updates as the weather warrants. In the meantime, send your emails to [email protected]