The ski areas have tons of snow and very nice conditions for Saturday. There is still some natural snow around the region still on the ground too. Come enjoy!
Get your turns in on Saturday if you have a chance. As I am typing up this report at 9:30am I’m watching the live cams around the region about every chair is full heading up Appalachian Ski Mountain. Things look foggy there this morning but very busy. Things are a little clearer at Beech at this time which is a clear indication that the weather should be nice today. It’s pretty foggy up top at Sugar.
There’s a bunch of great fun planned for today across the region. We’ve been promoting those all week, but you can check the tour today for some last minute mentions. The weather should be pretty nice across the entire region today with intervals of sun and clouds and temps in the 40-45° range. The weather for Sunday looks like anywhere from an inch to perhaps even three inches of rain with some freezing rain falling briefly in the pre-dawn hours and winds will be picking up to the 20-30 mph range with gusts popping up to 60 mph across the region.
Obviously that isn’t a pretty forecast, so get your turns in today and then enjoy the NFL Playoffs on Sunday and then Monday evening things should improve tons with some snow and much colder air in the forecast!
We’ve included a tour today with some specific forecast information for your convenience.
The regional summary for this weekend would be:
It’s a bit wet and foggy this morning around the region although it looks like we’ll see plenty of good windows of opportunity for making a bunch of turns today. The forecast for the southeast and mid Atlantic Resort Mountains is for a decent day on Saturday with intervals of sun and clouds throughout the day. We should see the rain hold off for most areas until a good portion or all of the night sessions are done Saturday night. Then anywhere from 1 to 2 inches of rain is forecasted. Some flooding is expected from this heavy rain tonight into Sunday. We might even hear some thunder.
Before we dive into the tour, we’ve received a bunch of emails from many of you who have been concerned about and commenting on the fact that some ski areas are doing a great job of updating their base depths while some others have not even reported ONE INCH of difference in the last ten days.
That’s all we can do is report what we know. It’s up to you guys to decide what to do with that information. We appreciate all the comments though!
In the last ten days since January 13th here’s what we can report about reported base depths across the region:
Resort 24hr / 10 day drop
Appalachian: – 6" / – 25"
Cataloochee: – 2" / – 28"
Beech Mountain: – 1" / – 18"
Sugar Mountain: – 2" / – 27.5"
Wolf Ridge: – 0" / – 9" (No drop in last four days)
Bryce Resort: – 0" / – 0"
Massanutten: – 0" / – 5" (dropped one day in the last ten)
Wintergreen: – 0" / – 10" (they made snow the last two nights)
Canaan Valley: – 0" / – 0"
Snowshoe Mountain: NA" / -10" (+ use of single digit reporting)
Timberline: 0" / – 4" (dropped one day in the last ten)
Winterplace: – 0" / – 0"
Wisp Resort: – 0" / – 0"
Ober Gatlinburg: 0" / – 23.5"
So while some ski areas have reported drops of up to 28" in the last ten days, FOUR ski areas have reported not one inch of difference. Obviously snow only melts at certain resorts.
Here’s the tour:
Appalachian Ski Mountain – 31° – 100% open with ice skating and all three terrain parks open as well. Appalachain is offering a special that coincides with Learn a Snowsport Month. App and the French Swiss Ski College is offering a special Learn to Ski Package Offer that is designed to make your first time on the slopes an experience that’s easy, fun, and inexpensive.
Learn to Ski Package: $42
Learn to Snowboard Package: $54 (Ages 6 & Up)
Cost Includes:
Slope Ticket
Rental Equipment
1 Hour Group Lesson
Date: January 27, 2010
Reservations are required at least one day in advance. No deposit necessary. Call (828) 295-9311 to reserve your space.
Beech Mountain looking goooodddd this morning!>
Beech Mountain Resort – 32° – 100% with only their dedicated terrain park not open. Oz run, White Lightning…all your favorites are running and Beech hosts the 3rd Rail event today starting at 11am. Tubing is not running today.
Cataloochee Ski Area – 34° – 100% open with terrain park and tubing open as well. It’s foggy this morning but the forecast is for sun and clouds today and this afternoon in beautiful Maggie Valley! We did just receive a weather alert for Maggie Valley that 1.2 inches of rain is forecasted for them for tonight and Sunday. Get your turns in today! Monday looks to be offering some snow and plenty of great snowmaking ops!
Sugar Mountain – 31° – 100% open with all 20 trails looking nice and tubing and skating are looking great as well. I was talking with Louise Anderson of Resort Rentals on the mountain on Friday and she was telling me that Sugar was strongly considering to have to turn people away last weekend they were so busy. MLK Weekend was a huge success and cars were parked out on the highway. Sugar’s transit busses were busy. We were over at Sugar Friday evening and I have to tell you that Sugar and Banner Elk was as busy as we’ve seen it so this weather isn’t holding people back from enjoying the mountain! Looks like Saturday will be another busy, busy day!
Wolf Ridge Resort – 34° – They reopened a couple of trails for today. They now have 16 of 20 trails open. Rick Bussey writes, "We will have 16 runs open today with 4 lifts in full operation. These will include the Ridge connector slope and the one of a kind Breakaway ski through tunnel slope."
We were looking at several of the webcams in the state this morning and conditions look darn nice for Saturday.
Sunday may be a wash out so get some turns in today!
That’s it for today. See the conditions across the rest of the Southeast by visiting www.SkiSoutheast.com 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]
SSAA: 1 for 57//self 55/57