A “Quiet Roar” of Snowguns Firing at a Few Ski Areas this Morning.
It is November 1st, 2023 and about two weeks later than the long term average date of the first snowflakes in the region. Snowshoe, Canaan Valley and Timberline reported a TRACE of natural snow on Tuesday morning. My reason for looking around the region on THIS particular morning was prompted by the forecast for temperatures to crash into the low to mid 20s this morning. There was a lot of social media chatter that we’d see several of the “usual suspect ski areas” begin their snowmaking operations – even if it were just to test the pipes and system.
I Can Neither Confirm nor Deny…
This morning’s temperatures are f-r-i-g-i-d as we’re seeing:
18° at Appalachian
12° at Beech
18° at Cataloochee
13° at Sugar
18° at Hatley Point
Those not cold enough for you? How about 13-16° at various mountaintops into Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland WITH natural snowfall!?!?!
Are We Living in a Simulation? (Haha.)
Maybe not, but you CAN hang out in our Virtual Land of Snow via ResortCams.com
As mentioned, this morning’s low temperatures made me consider that we might see Cataloochee, Beech and/or Sugar Mountain making snow. I figured Snowshoe Mountain would be doing so and therefore I paid a visit to https://www.resortcams.com/ski-cams/
Interestingly, what I DIDN’T expect to see was that FIVE of our Southeastern ski resorts were receiving the first, significant snowfall of the season!
I was also surprised to find that our old buddy, David Lesher of Canaan Valley weather is turning his reporting duties over to Bill Peterson. Bill, nor David has updated their report just yet, but from all imagery coming out of the Timberline and Canaan Valley live cameras, I’d say that we will see an official report of about 2″ of natural snowfall this morning as of this posting and light flurries may add a bit to that total through mid-morning.
In terms of MAKING SNOW (or resorts that MADE snow Wednesday morning), Beech Mountain has ONE, lone fan tower blasting some snow on a small parcel at their base this morning. We have to believe this is a test, or perhaps they are just making snow to be the first ski area in North Carolina to do so for this season. (They CAN NOW brag that they made snow first, and did so on November 1st, 2023!)
None of the other ski areas in North Carolina, including the usual suspects (Cataloochee and Sugar) are making snow this morning.
The Omni Homestead Resort in Virginia isn’t making snow, however, the have a nice dusting of snow across their mountain on November 1st and that is a nice start to the month.
Wintergreen Resort (in Virginia) is the lone Virginia ski area to be making snow this morning…and they too might just be testing their powerful, snowmaking plant.
The more significant snows fell into West Virginia and Maryland as perhaps 1-2″ of snow has blanketed Snowshoe Mountain, Canaan Valley and Timberline Mountain. A nice dusting of snow also fell at Winterplace Resort. However, the only West Virginia ski area making snow this morning is at Snowshoe Mountain where it is 16° – and they are creating a virtual snow-globe effect across much of their mountain, including over on the Silver Creek side of things.
Closing comments…
We have found our new FirsTrax snow reporter. We’ll share that intel shortly. We’re excited to get the season kick-started. The forecast is for this frigid burst of cold to give way to more normal temperatures so that is probably why we didn’t see more snowmaking happening across the region.
Speaking of weather – be sure to check out High Country Weather as it shares live temperatures, radar updates and 7 days of forecasting for 30 mountain communities of the Southeast and mid-Atlantic.
We will be sharing more updates and exciting news in the days to come. If you’d like to reach out, hit me up at [email protected] and please follow us on Facebook and Instagram.