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8/16/2022 – The High Country
Thanks to Matt Laws for keeping us informed on the foggy August mornings to date. This morning as I was driving up to McDonald’s for a breakfast biscuit and then back down NC Hwy 105 South to the metropolis of Foscoe, the low-hanging fog and cloud cover was pretty impressive.
I recent purchased a new DJI Mavic 3 drone, which is now my third drone. This update is meant to be more of a story to share the August fogs update, so I won’t elaborate too much on the technological marvel that IS the Mavic 3, but it IS amazing for how far these drones have come since just a few years ago – first with the Vantage II and then the Vantage II Pro.
This new drone shoots in 5.1 K, which is pretty much massive overkill for use on a website, but nevertheless, the imagery and videos coming out of this thing are impressive. I recently read where a Los Angeles based cinematographer has found that while he carries 3-4 drones with him on shoots – he rarely uses anything more than the Mavic 3 because of how the images come out of the camera unedited. That said …
This morning’s fog makes for number 12 of 16 mornings thus far. That bodes well if you want to put any stock in what the particular old farmer’s tale predicts.
Matt and I will try to keep you informed regularly. I actually took a little video this morning, but Grandfather Mountain was covered up so I’ll save that “reveal” for another morning. I’ll try to post something tomorrow as well.
In closing, I know that many of you have emailed me about the 2022-2023 Winter Forecast released by the Farmer’s Almanac – not to be confused with the rival Old Farmer’s Almanac.
We will cover the subject of the 2022-2023 Winter Forecast extensively really soon, but suffice to say that The Farmer’s Almanac has been predicting weather since 1818. They have us looking for a REALLY nice winter for the snow lovers out there.
There are 38 more days until Autumn officially arrives, but weather gurus are already sharing conflicting content to argue that we may or may not be “in for” the kind of winter that Farmer’s Almanac is predicting. The OLD Farmer’s Almanac won’t be releasing their 2022-2023 Winter Forecast until around Labor Day, but the editor of The Old Farmer’s Almanac shared this tease:
“DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU LIVE, this will be the best of winters or memorable for all the wrong reasons,” and she added, “One half of the U.S. will be dealing with bone-chilling cold and loads of snow, while the other half may feel like winter never really arrives.”
Again, we will share the National Weather Service’s long-range forecasts later, but they seem to be sharing that our coverage area of the Southeast and mid-Atlantic is going to see a rare ‘triple-dip’ La Niña where for the 3rd year in a row we will see weather patterns similar to the last two winters. Remember that although each of the last two winters have been “winners” due to amazing snow-making tech and cooperative temperatures – we have still seen two sub-par winters in a row with less natural snowfall than normal.
Last season Sugar Mountain Resort fell nearly TWO FEET less than that prediction of 70″ (they had 46.5″) for the season. Beech Mountain, which normally averages 80″ each winter only saw 49″ during the 2021-2022 winter.
We have previously reported the season snowfall totals for all of the ski areas last winter, but even with a late-season, 2″ of snow overnight, Snowshoe Mountain Resort ended up OVER EIGHT FEET short of their normal 180″ seasonally. Their total of 83″ of snow last winter was 97″ short of the marketing average.
We Can Hope That Farmer’s Almanac is Accurate, Right?
As we get closer to Labor Day, we will probably come up with some sort of ‘weather boxing match”. In THIS corner is Farmer’s Almanac and in the other will be the educated experts of weather. We’ll see.
Til then – keep checking back here for updates every few days on the August fogs and more.