Man was that some unbelievable rains that hit the region this afternoon and evening! The rains were moderate all morning on Tuesday and as the day went on they became more and more substantial. This afternoon and evening was so hard that it closed many roads in the Western North Carolina mountains and according to the National Weather Service was moving up the Eastern Seaboard and all of our ski area coverage resorts were getting a LOT of rain.
We personally recorded 5.5" of rain on our weather station situated between Boone and Banner Elk near the foot of Seven Devils. The stations up at Hawksnest and Beech recorded nearly exactly 3" of rain and Boone stations via Ray Russell’s BooneWeather.com website were over 3" on the day.
We snapped some quick video to show you the results of those as far as swollen rivers and streams go. Click Here to view Watauga River Video
While we don’t have first-hand knowledge of the amount of rains over towards Wolf and Cataloochee…and on up into Virginia, WV and Maryland – there is no question that the entire region saw 2-3" of rain and some locally heavier amounts. We will share that data with you in the morning as we get it.
Earlier Tuesday afternoon, we were looking at the live cams via www.HighCountryWebCams.com and things were already looking p-r-e-t-t-y bad at Ski Beech and Hawksnest. We can only imagine that those resorts that were already pretty thin on base…will suffer pretty bad. Sugar and App will hold up well to this storm because they had a lot of snow, but there’s not much doubt that it will take some top-notch snow maintenance from some talented crews to bring everything back online as early as Wednesday morning.
We can only speculate (and that is all it is right now at 11:30pm Tuesday night) that some ski areas MAY not open on Wednesday. We’ll update you as early as possible. Appalachian will be fine…as will some others in NC, VA, WV and Maryland. However, there’s a chance that you may see Wolf Ridge close up for the season; Ski Beech at least temporarily closed if not for the season. (There is cold and snow in the forecast and they MIGHT opt to fight back off the mat yet again.) The rains will make it tough "sledding" (pun intended) for some other ski areas…although there is no question that resorts further north into West Virginia and northward will be in good shape even with the rain.
THE GOOD NEWS is that cold and snow is in the forecast as well and conditions will be nominal at some of the more southerly resorts…decent to good further north and the resorts into WV and Maryland will see only a minor blip on the radar as far as affecting their conditions – especially as we head into the weekend.
We will update this report AM Wednesday morning and share all we know at that time. It is important to remember that we have the best snow maintenance crews in the entire country right here in the Southeast and Mid Atlantic…so conditions will be surprisingly good to great at Appalachian, good at some of the others and great further north, especially with the cold blast diving temps down into the 20s and 30s Thursday and Friday night (especially into WV) and even into the single digits Saturday night at Snowshoe. The North Carolina resorts should see temps into the teens Saturday night.
So think COLD and SNOW. We could use it!
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