6pm: Update: After a bit of sleet early, the snow began to fall earlier than expected and at around 11:30AM perhaps an inch of snow had fallen. Now at 6pm, the heavy snow is hitting with waves of really hard snow and very little wind. We have 6-7" here and measured about 7" at the foot of Beech at around 3:30pm.
The temperatures for the most part are in the low 30s this morning and with some light rain coming down at this time (7am). There is a Winter Storm Warning for much of the North Carolina Mountains and anywhere from 2-45" of snow is expected today through 7am Monday. Over towards Haywood County (home to Cataloochee), they have a Winter Weather Advisory posted and calling for 1-2" of snow. Same thing for Madison County (home to Wolf Ridge Ski Areas) where 1-2" of snow is forecasted for today.
We have not found BIG SNOW in the forecast, but 3-5" is forecasted for Wilkesboro (east of the mountains) and the highest forecasted snow in the state that we’ve seen via the National Weather Service is – HICKORY, NORTH CAROLINA where 3-6" are forecasted. Not sure where that FOOT of snow is that everyone was talking about on Saturday (including us).
According to most of the meteorologists, we’ll not begin seeing snow until later in the day on Sunday – rather than earlier this morning as some had predicted just yesterday.
However, SNOW is snow and we’ll see a shot of snow today and evidently some gusty winds later in the day to boot. So as it turns out, this was the first weekend of the entire season that was rather rainy and wet. We still saw a good crowd via many of the LIVE cams and even saw a decent group of snow tubers up at Hawksnest yesterday.
The high for today is likely to be right where we are at now (low 30s) so as temperatures fall through the day look for the snowmaking crews to crank up the snow mechanisms around the region as soon as they can. That could be very early in the day as steady, falling temperatures are forecasted.
For those resorts that want to do so, snowmaking could be an around the clock kind of thing all day Sunday, Sunday night and all day Monday and Monday night! Due to the nature of the wet weekend and quickly falling temperatures – look for some icy conditions particularly later this evening out on the slopes. The 2-4" of natural snow AND snowmaking temps will help to defray the icy conditions, but there is likely to be some out there.
Monday will be sunny and cold, with some flurries early. Monday night’s low is expected to be in the 12° range and then Tuesday and Wednesday appear to be awesome days to be on the slopes at your favorite ski resort in the state.
If you have never had the opportunity to ski mid week, THIS would be a great week to do so. There is really nothing like skiing or snowboarding as many turns down the mountain as you can possibly get in with NO LIFT LINES and near perfect conditions. The ability to ski the hill almost entirely by yourself, right up to the lift chair and then back down again – over and over is an awesome experience and this week’s forecast for perfect weather and snow quality should be calling you to the slopes!
Get your gear and your rears up here!
…and for today…THINK SNOW!
With the weather being what it is today, we’ll probably do an update or two and add some photos to the mix…so for today…go check the SLOPE REPORT
Some closing observations:
App is reporting 6" less base this morning than 24 hours ago. That is an indicator on how much rain fell in the last 24 hours. They are still reporting 72-97" and look great. Wet, but great.
Cataloochee’s Ski report basically quelled ONE rumor that we heard yesterday. There was some scuttlebutt that Cat would not be making anymore snow for the rest of the season. Obviously that report was not accurate as Cataloochee announced that they WILL make snow this evening as temps drop. Sundays are DAY SKIING only days at Cat so look for those guns to fire up right after the day sessions finish up.
Sugar Mountain is not making snow right now – although they are showing cold enough temps to do so. They are hosting the Dick Trundy Memorial Cup race today on Big Red. They have announced that NO SNOWMAKING will occur today. Expect those guns to fire up in force shortly after the day sessions end. Sugar reports a 3" drop in base from 24 hours ago…but they are in great shape today.
Watch the LIVE BIG RED CAM ALL DAY at: Sugar Mountain Ski Resort Web Cam
For those that will email and ask… Ski Beech and Wolf reported no drop in base depth from 24 hours ago.
We reported about a week ago that we’d not be covering Sapphire’s ski report anymore due to the fact that you can’t get a ski report out of them. They have not updated any ski resource in more than two weeks and their own website has been AWOL since the 13th.
That’s it for today. Snow is already falling in some locations around the Southeast and Mid Atlantic. Find out where and what to expect at all of the Southeast’s ski areas over on www.SkiSoutheast.com
Send photos, videos, trip reports and comments to: [email protected]