I have a lot of catching up to do today, so bear with me while I combine today’s reports for SkiNC and SkiSoutheast.com. However, you’ll still want to make sure that you visit both websites as there will be unique photos of the day.
I have a lot to cover this morning, so I’ll jump right in. THE WEATHER is the thing on most of our minds this morning. If you are headed to McHenry, Maryland (home to Wisp Resort) then you are heading into quite a lot of SNOW! They have ALREADY seen eight inches of snow over the last 24+ hours (9” in the last 48) and 27” on the season. There’s a 70% shot at up to 4” more on Sunday and another inch or so Sunday night! As if that’s not enough (it never is!) they are looking at a strong chance of snow every day this week through Saturday!
Ditto for Snowshoe, Timberline and Canaan Valley Resorts in West Virginia. Snowshoe picked up 2” more snow in the last 24 hours and now is showing 32” on the season. Timberline and Canaan saw a TRACE of new snow but all are looking at 2-4” of snow Sunday and snow showers through Friday!
As we look slightly south to Ghent, West Virginia (home to Winterplace) things looks a little less snowy and more on the icy side. But they too are then looking at snow chances all week.
EVEN FURTHER SOUTH WE GO!!!
Massanutten Resort in Virginia looks to be getting in on the snow act. They are expecting 1-3” of snow today, then partly cloudy through Wednesday when another chance of snow comes into the forecast. Then next weekend is looking partly cloudy.
Dropping down to Gatlinburg, Tennessee (home to Ober Gatlinburg Ski Area) will get you a little WET on Sunday! Monday looks icy or wet, and then Tuesday looks partly cloudy, Wednesday icy or snowy, Thursday looks like light SNOW and the weekend appears to be a partly cloudy one.
As we look into my peeps in North Carolina it appears that Ray Russell and the National Weather Service agree that we’ll see some sleet, freezing rain and snow on Sunday, light rain chances on Monday, partly cloudy on Tuesday, chances of SNOW on Wednesday and Thursday, then clear skies next weekend.
TEMPERATURES AND CONDITIONS —
The great news is that the cold temperatures that we’ve seen all this week, will continue to stick around right through the extended forecast period (through next weekend) AT LEAST. Highs will be mostly in the 20s and 30s across the entire region and lows will be in the teens and 20s. Those temps, along with some natural snow, will make for better and better conditions with each passing day. Better conditions will mean more slope/terrain openings, etc.
Conditions will vary across the region today. Obviously it doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to know that wherever the snow is falling – those resorts will be experiencing the better of the conditions today and throughout the week. Wherever some ice or freezing rain is falling – it will be – well…icier!
It should be noted that no matter where you’re headed for the coming week, you’re in for a very nice time on the slopes…so shut down the computer (after you’ve read all of the stories here today!) and pack your bags and gear – and head to your favorite ski area.
COUPLE OF FINAL NOTES
We received some nice emails about Scott Fagan’s story (Remembering Sky Valley) that appears on www.SkiSoutheast.com (You can still see it on the front page, even after this article posts. It will be the second story down.) Sky Valley Ski Area was located in Georgia and since a lot of SkiNC enthusiasts used to ski there, you might want to skip over to SkiSoutheast.com and catch it. His story included some supporting photos as well. Thanks to Scott Fagan for getting that to us.
Speaking of contributing writers, a lot of you have noted that we have begun to incorporate more input to the content of the website. Joe Stevens has been writing for us for three seasons now, with his popular Joe Knows Snow column. Our newest columnist/trip reporter, Rob Story has seemingly caught your eye as our stats package shows a lot of your reading his contributions on The Real ‘Story’. We had enlisted Dave McConnell to write a Dave’s Raves and Rants column, however so far Dave has been rather silent other than an early rave of Cataloochee’s early opening and a rant against Mother Nature during the warm weather. Dave’s a colorful guy, and to be honest he really DOES love to be on the slopes, more than talk about it, but we hope to provide you guys with a bit more of TeleDave’s input.
We don’t want to confuse you guys, but we will be introducing another “Dave” to our mix. Dave Snow (yep that IS a cool last name and of no relation to Tony Snow of Fox News) will be contributing content to SkiNC and SkiSoutheast beginning with an initial rant sometime today. He will be showing up under the Dave’s Raves and Rants column heading beginning on Monday along with Dave McConnell.
Dave writes pretty well and we think that you will enjoy another viewpoint to add to our mix. Also, with a last name like “SNOW” we figured that it might just add to our karma thing and luck us into some more natural snow chances. The bottom line is that even if Mother Nature doesn’t make it naturally snow in the area – there WILL BE SNOW here on SkiNC and SkiSoutheast!
Here’s ONE small “rant” of my own this morning!
When is Packed Powder – Packed Powder…
We have to get on Joe Stevens’ band wagon this morning because too many ski areas are reporting packed powder today. I skied last night and I can tell you that the resort that I skied last night had NO packed powder. They could have reported “manmade packed powder” and in my opinion that would still have been inaccurately describing the conditions. It would not be fair to single out the resort that I skied at last night because it would give the impression that I am singling out that one resort. The truth is too many resorts are reporting packed powder conditions when there has been no snow since earlier in the week.
Joe Stevens has a stronger, less flexible opinion about this subject than I do, because he cringes every time a resort that hasn’t even HAD snow, reports packed powder. I personally think that some of the manmade snow variety could qualify as packed powder at times. (Not ALL manmade snow is powdery…so it wouldn’t always apply.) Even in those cases, I’d like to see it called “Manmade Packed Powder” because the variety that God puts down is definitely a different brand of powder.
Some may think that I am on a rant this morning but that’s really not the case but as I was compiling the snow report for this morning I saw that on a few reporting services as many as EIGHT Southeast and Mid Atlantic resorts had reports of Packed Powder. Truth is only FOUR of them should be reporting those kinds of conditions and they would be Snowshoe Mountain, Timberline Resort, Canaan Valley and Wisp Resort. They all had from 6-8” of snow in the last 30-48 hours and of course that would qualify.
Hats off to Sugar Mountain for calling it correctly as “Manmade Packed Powder and Frozen Granular”
Enjoy your day on the slopes and drop us and email!
Until Next Time…
THINK COLD AND SNOW!!!
Email your comments and photos to [email protected]
For more information about the ski resorts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic visit www.SkiSoutheast.com
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