The question of the day has to be, "What’s the weather going to be like, we see rain in the forecast quite a bit for the next week?"
Let’s take a good, CLOSE look at what we can expect and perhaps put everyone at ease. Today should be pretty good through the first half of the day and quite possibly we may stay dry all the way through the day session of skiing. Resorts further west (Wolf Laurel, Sapphire, Cataloochee) will see rain a bit earlier (mid morning) and those in the High Country will begin picking up some showers around mid-afternoon. Virginia and West Virginia resorts will see the rain move in later in the evening or tonight. Depending on how fast it moves in…look for some wet precip around 1-3pm. That’s the call for today with highs around 45-47°. There’s more than a good chance that the rain will pretty much keep all but the diehards off the slopes tonight. 70% chance of rain.
That’s all the bad news. The good news is that the rain should change over to SNOW tomorrow morning. We may wake up to some snow…and we should see some accumulation out of it…much like Monday with 1-4" in some locations. That will make Thursday’s skiing p-r-e-t-t-y sweet. We may see some early-early light rain but it should be snow pretty early. Tomorrow should be much colder in the 33° range…dropping to snowmaking temps around 23° late Thursday. The weekend looks good, with partly cloudy days…milder temps…and particularly nice Friday and Sunday. While there IS a chance for light rain on Saturday…it’s only a 30% chance right now, which means that there’s a 70% it won’t. Think positive!
We hope that answers everyone’s anxieties over what MAY happen. Things looks pretty good all-in-all and the slope conditions are downright wonderful know matter where you choose to ski.
The crowds are out in force, so expect a little wait from time to time. While there may be some longer waits, most of the emails that we received alluded to most being in the 10-15 minute range. That’s not too bad. Email us if you experience longer waits… [email protected]
Marketing 101 – Putting a good spin on things
We’re safe in saying that conditions will be very nice in terms of snow conditions…but today will be wet. There’s plenty of base, great side to side coverage and groomed conditions most everywhere! Expect to have a great time once the under-developed snow stops.
We couldn’t help but chuckle a little when we reviewed the different statements on each of the websites this morning. Ski Beech’s report posted by Gil Adams, stated the normal slope openings, etc and a statement saying, "there’s a chance of showers later in the day."
Sugar’s statement posted by Kim Jochl? "Skies will be cloudy today." Well it DOES have to be CLOUDY for it to rain. Also Andrea Smith at Snowshoe is reporting Loose Granular conditions (all others groomed or even packed powder)…and Kathy Doyle at Ober Gatlinburg DROPPED their base depth by a couple inches. Since there’s been NO snowmaking for a couple of days now…you’d think all base depths would have dropped a L-i-t-t-e.
We salute you Miss Smith, Ms. Doyle and Mr. Adams.
Have fun out…and dodge the showers…or clouds.
Until Next Time!
Be sure to check out www.SkiSoutheast.com for more news and stories for all of the Southeast’s ski areas.
Be sure to email photos, snow reports and comments to: [email protected]