I had a "moment" yesterday. I was having driving my youngest daughter to basketball practice at around 6pm and one of the local radio guys was talking about the Blizzard of 1993. I started relating a couple of stories about the storm to my eight year old. I was relating the fact that the temperatures that day, fifteen years ago, hovered around zero. The word "zero" barely got out of my mouth and I looked down at the outside temperature reading on my car and had to laugh at loud as I read – S-I-X-T-Y F-I-V-E degrees! (One person emailed us that they saw a temp of 71° on Thursday!)
Then I remembered that after posting a story about the blizzard a couple of years ago, someone emailed me that it was something like 70° in Atlanta two days before the blizzard. Hey IT COULD HAPPEN!
OTHER THINGS ARE ON PEOPLE’S MINDS…
There’s still some good conditions at the ski areas that are open, but yesterday I was invited to go play a round of golf down in Hickory and one of my office staff invited me to go play a couple of sets of tennis in Boone. A week ago today I was on my way up to Snowshoe, WV and ultimately skied in nearly a foot of fresh powder last Sunday…and on Thursday I was invited to participate in about anything BUT skiing. Tis that time of the season!
If you have never done any Spring skiing, you should give it a try. The snow is soft and plentiful, and the air temp allows for skiing without all of the bulky coats, face masks and pesky snowguns. If you HAVE skied during this time of year, you should know that the conditions out and about are p-r-e-t-t-y- good right now.
THE WEATHER WILL MAKE IT HIT AND MISS FOR THIS WEEKEND…
Early Friday and all day Sunday looks like the best bets for skiing and riding. Some thunderstorms may hamper your snow fun later today and some possibly heavy rain may hit on Saturday. Sunday looks nice with highs in the mid 40s and the low on Sunday night will allow for snowmaking. Appalachian has vowed to make snow at every opportunity right up until the night before their closing on March 30th.
Some light snow accummulation may take place Saturday night and Sunday up into West Virginia and lows up that way may drop to around 20°. Snowshoe Mountain has also posted that they will resume making snow as temps allow and that could be as early as midday Saturday. Honestly the FOLLOWING week is shaping up to be a bit on the wet side…so we wouldn’t be surprised to see some earlier-than-expected closings. We’ll keep you posted.
ANNOUNCEMENTS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, ANNOUNCEMENTS!
We’re obviously enjoying the last two weeks or so of the ski season and the resorts that are still open are all planning for some great closing weekends of fun festivities and events. From cardboard box derbies to bathing beauty contests to fun skiing events to a Snowy Luau…there’s something happening everywhere!
We decided to post all of the events and announcements within the section of the website that we had previously been posting Trip Reports. You can see ALL of the announcements that resorts are sharing with us by clicking here> Southeast Ski Resorts Events
MORE ABOUT TRIP REPORT PLANS FOR NEXT SEASON…
This has been one of our weakest seasons (if not THE weakest) in terms of yours truly getting all of the photos and trip reports that many of you and our trip reporters have sent in. We have just been SO busy with day to day operations that we have simply not gotten to post all of the trip reports and photos that you guys have sent. We’ll give ourselves a "D" on that task this season.
We never dreamed that this website would get all of the attention that it gets and admittedly keeping up with all aspects of information that we have to share…has been a daunting task this season. We THINK we’re going to approach the all-important task of posting the best images and trip reports differently for next season. Plans are to have our programmer to create a module that will allow our TOP REPORTERS to post their own that will immediately be posted right to the website. For all of you who share sporadic trip reports and photos – we think that we will simply setup a special section on the messageboard that allows you guys to do that anyway…and then link RIGHT TO THAT THREAD from the front page and slope conditions page. (I don’t know WHY we have not thought of that before!!!!)
For now, we have replaced that spot within our middle column of the front page with "SkiSoutheast.com Announcements" and we’ll post events and happenings such that the newest news will appear on the front page…and you can always see ALL that’s going on…by clicking on the announcements icon. We will still mention some of the most notable happenings within our morning updates and stories, but this special place will be devoted to keeping these events in front of our visitors in case you’re planning a last minute trip to YOUR favorite ski area!
BLIZZARD STORIES…
If YOU have an interesting Blizzard Story to share with us, email it to: [email protected] and we’ll share it with our readers over the next day or two as we celebrate that great storm!
Until Next time…
Be sure to visit www.SkiSoutheast.com for more news from the rest of the Southeast and Mid Atlantic ski areas!
Send your snow photos, videos, comments or emails to: [email protected]