I’m at it at just prior to 5am this morning as I am travelling to a North Carolina High School football championship to watch my nephew play in Chapel Hill today. It seems that for this particular day I am a Newton-Conover Red Devil fan. So the temps and details that we are reporting on our snow report and what you’re reading within this update was accurate at that time. If you are planning to head to your favorite ski resort today, you might want to verify the information that we’ve posted by visiting their website just to be certain. You can find that link information on each dedicated resort page within this website.
As I’m looking around the region this early in the morning I’m reminded WHY we’ve always posted our reports just prior to the opening sessions at the ski areas each morning. Many of the ski areas themselves don’t provide updated reports themselves until just prior to that time.
So check the snow report of your favorite ski area before heading up and we’ll get you guys an update later this evening.
One quick sidebar before I head out – the weather is looking pretty threatening for a large part of our area of coverage for this evening with a potential sleet, ice and freezing rain event. Our meteorologist buddies warned us that this winter’s pattern was going to threaten us with these kinds of possibilites this season with the southern branch of the jet stream delivering moisture up and over the colder air that the northern branch will be delivering. Seems that we may be in store for this kind of event Saturday evening into Sunday in some parts of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic.
The forecast for the Western NC and Virginia Mountains into Ghent, WV (home to Winterplace Resort) is for a high today in the low to mid 30s and a wintry mix of sleet and freezing rain possible for later this evening with highs in the mid to upper 20s and warming a bit after midnight. Sunday is looking kind of sloppy, so get your skiing and snowboarding in today and check the updated forecast here this evening and we’re hoping to be able to provide you guys with some better news – weatherwise. Areas further north in WV and Maryland may pick up some wet snow (an inch or two) before changing over to a wintry mix and then freezing rain, but there’s an 80% chance of underdeveloped snow on Sunday even in that part of our coverage area. Remember, however that the forecast in the higher elevations can change in a heartbeat so check back for the latest – later this evening. It things change we’ll let you know!
The great thing is that all of the ski areas have been bombing the slopes with tons of snow over the past 36-54 hours and bases look great.
Don’t forget that Bryce Resort, Wintergreen Resort, Canaan Valley, and Timberline are ALL debuting their resorts for the 2009-2010 season TODAY! That should provide us with 13 out of the 16 ski resorts in the region that will be open now. Only Sapphire Valley in North Carolina has yet to open; The Homestead is the lone Virginia resort not open (they will open next weekend) and Winterplace in WV will open next weekend as well. Winterplace would have opened today had it not been for the horrible ice storm that left them and a large portion of the state without power earlier in the week.
Have a safe day today if you’re hitting the slopes (and even if you’re not) and send us some videos, photos and trip reports of your visit to the mountains today at [email protected] . We’ll thank you to do so and help to "make you famous"!
Until later…
THINK SNOW (not ice) and Have a GREAT DAY!