August 26th update:
So far:
Thursday, August 26th – Moderate to Heavy Fog
Wednesday, August 25th – Moderate Fog
Tuesday, August 24th – Moderate to Heavy Fog
Monday, August 23rd – Heaviest Fog of the month
Sunday, August 22nd – Moderate to Heavy Fog
Saturday, August 21st – Moderate to Heavy Fog
Friday, August 20th – Heavy Fog
Thursday, August 19th, – Moderate Fog
Wednesday, August 18th, – Moderate to Heavy Fog
Tuesday, August 17th, – HEAVY Fog
Monday, August 16th – HEAVY Fog
Sunday, August 15th – Moderate Fog
Saturday, August 14th – Heavy Fog after Friday evening downpours
Friday, August 13th – Heavy, Dense Fog.
Thursday, August 12th – Moderate to Heavy Fog due to overnight rains.
Wednesday, August 11th – Heavy Dense Fog. Oh Boy!
Tuesday, August 10th – Light Fog again…
Monday, August 9th – Light Fog this morning.
Sunday, August 8th – Light to Moderate Fog.
Saturday, August 7th – Light Fog. I was staying over at Watauga Lake this weekend, but word came to me from Michelle Bauer of Banner Elk. She reported, "…there was definately some fog this morning that quickly burned off around 9am or so."
Friday, August 6th – Heaviest Fog of the month. Heavy thunder and lightning took place Thursday evening and the leftover moisture and humidity made for some dense fog this morning. If this translates to SNOW this winter, it’ll be a HEAVY ONE!
Thursday, August 5th – Dense Fog
Wednesday, August 4th – Moderate Fog, mostly around Valle Crucis
Tuesday, August 3rd – Moderate Fog, particularly towards Boone
Monday, August 2nd – Heavy Fog
Sunday, August 1st – Heavy Fog
We’ve been tracking foggy August mornings for years and have never seen a 26 for 26.
I began receiving emails from some of the ski areas two or three weeks ago which was MUCH too early for my personal liking. However IT IS that time when ski resorts are now putting together their battle plans for the upcoming season. We’ll be sharing more and more news now as we get closer to the start of the 2010-2011 ski season.
FIRST ITEM OF BUSINESS – FOGGY AUGUST MORNINGS
We’re weeks away from initiating contacts with our weather gurus and providing a 2010 Winter Forecast, however on my drive into work over the last couple of weeks I couldn’t help but be reminded about the old bit of folklore about foggy August mornings equating to winter snow storms.
Actually the last week or so in July I was wondering if the early fogs hadn’t kicked in a bit earlier this year. Nevertheless, as the calendar flipped to August this past Sunday I began tracking the foggy starts.
WE’RE LOOKING FOR MORE HELP THIS WINTER
Last season I was helped quite a bit with some regular reporting and input from a couple of our staffers (Andrea McIntyre and Will Mauney). Andrea has relocated to Johnson City, Tennessee and We’ll be in need of some additional help in reporting and content this season as we’re (yet again) going to try and ramp things up again this winter. We have hopes to create the most informative weather and snow reporting network for our ski coverage area. I think most of you guys and gals feel that we offer THE BEST in terms of snow reporting and related content with webcams, etc. However we want to ramp up things with our weather reporting and it would be really cool to be able to get more involvement by YOU GUYS in reporting from YOUR favorite ski area. Ideally we’d love to have four or five reporters from every ski area to provide us with at least once a week input FROM the ski area as per activities, events, weather and conditions. A few years back we initiated our On Snow Reporters network and we’d like to reinstate that to a greater degree.
If you plan to ski or ride a couple of times a week at YOUR FAVORITE ski area in the region and have a good digital camera and a desire to share your take on how things are going throughout the season – we’d LOVE to have you as a part of our network. Drop us an email at [email protected] and provide us your name and how often you can provide reports and we’ll get you onboard.
SKIPINK IS IN THE HOUSE…
Frances dropped by the office this past week and it was great to see her. In addition to being a loyal SkiNC/SkiSoutheaster Frances is with the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem. (No wonder many of our more medicated messageboard members migrate to her! – J-u-s-t k-i-d-d-i-n-g!)
Anyway, Frances was in town to take part in some musical fun over in Valle Crucis this past weekend, but she dropped by the office to promote an MS Fundraiser over at Tanglewood. Seems that she and several SkiNC-ers are participating as a team bike ride event to raise money to fight MS. She had written us earlier that, "…Several SkiNC people are doing the MS Tour to Tanglewood Bicycle Ride with me this September. The Riders are me, Keith, Kelly Melang (Skiwryter), and believe it or not Hubert Baxter is coming up from Florida! Also Jim Bailey (SlimJim) is hosting the tent. I’m trying to talk Andrea into riding too. This year is the 25th anniversary of the ride and we are expecting 1700 + riders."
We jumped on board as a sponsor and gave her a bunch of stickers and if you’re over that way you should be able to spot those guys proudly (and loyally) representin’ us with jerseys displaying the SkiSoutheast Logo. Thanks to Frances and all team members and thanks for thinking of us.
JULY AND AUGUST TRAFFIC…
It never ceases to amaze me how much visitor traffic we get to our ski network websites in the middle of summer. All of July we average 2700 unique visitors per DAY to SkiNC.com and SkiSoutheast.com – on a ski website – in JULY! If you add in the webcams (3000 a day) and weather (800 a day) we’re getting comparatively BOMBED compared to last year at this time. For a ski website promoting ski areas in the Southeast and Mid Atlantic to pull 84,000 visitors in July "ain’t too bad".
If you have some news or photos to share, email us at: [email protected]