I made it into the office this morning around 7am. The roads were in good shape as a result of the combination of a bright sunny day on Sunday and the area’s DOT crews. Major roads were down to blacktop for the most part. Secondary roads are still pretty well snow-covered. This round of snows coming from what has been promoted as a MAJOR WINTER STORM started up here in the High Country at around 5am according to most sources. By the time I headed to the office Highway 105 was covered again with a light accumulation (around an inch of snow).
I’ve already heard reports that the majority of the snow is SOUTH of the the ski area communities, with the exception of the most southerly ski resorts. Sapphire has already reported 7" of snow and Cataloochee 6.2" of new snow. Wolf Ridge has reported 3" and Ski Beech and Sugar about an inch or so in the last few hours. This last one inch of snow at Beech Mountain takes them to 20.8" since Thursday and 91" on the season.
This particular storm has at least started out dumping more snow to the south of us than here at the ski areas as we’ve heard from readers that there’s 5" of snow in Columbia, SC and 214 traffic accidents since the roads in the midlands of South Carolina since midnight last night!
The Travelers Rest (Greenville) SC area has had 7.6" of snow. Waynesville, NC (Western NC Mountains around Maggie Valley) is reporting 12" of snow this morning! Asheville is reporting 7".
All of this and snow-prone Beech Mountain is officially reporting 1" of new snow! Crazy weather, huh? None of the Virginia resorts are reporting any snowfall as yet and Davis, WV is the only West Virginia ski area reporting any snowfall from this system and that was only 4/10ths of an inch.
The forecast is for some light snow accumulation of 1-2" or so at the WV resorts through Tuesday night with more snow in the forecast through Thursday night. This mostly southerly snow event is forecasted to put another 5-8" of snow through Tuesday evening across the North Carolina ski areas with MORE snow in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday.
Our Communications Director, Sarah Davis has posted the FirsTrax news for today and the summary is that conditions will be awesome for skiing and riding if you’re one of the lucky ones to be able to get out and enjoy it today. I have some friends in town today and will be taking in some turns at Appalachian Ski Mountain today. We’ll send you some photos, etc.
Also this past weekend’s fun at Beech Mountain was great. We got a lot of photos and vids from Sunday and we’ll post those up asap.
Go enjoy these awesome conditions and we’ll share more news as the snow continues to fall.
Email me at [email protected] and tell me about the snow in your area. Send
pics when you can!