…and a way too early winter 2024-2025 Snow Forecast

THE Final Tally of August 2024 Fogs: 16

Guys and gals, in November I will be embarking on my 72nd rotation around the Sun, with this year also being the 30th rotation while handling the role of part time writer, reporter and weather-data-sharer. In all of the previous 29 years, we have shared the count of foggy mornings in August. It almost seems like a rite-of-passage – attempting to prematurely take us away from our enjoyment of “all things Summer” only to put us to work keeping COUNT of fogs.

Oh, we do it every year. When we’ve missed a day or two into August, we’ve heard it from you guys. Yes, we will do it again beginning with THIS post. However, I’m going on record to say that whether we count ONE foggy morning, or THIRTY ONE – it will make zero difference. If the final tally on August 31st reflects 30 mornings of fog there will be about 99% of you who are SkiSoutheast followers and fans who will share the news gleefully with your snow, ski and snowboarding friends…AND there will be about 1% of you who will complain, HOPING the old folklore is wrong and we have a snowless winter.

Of course, that 1% of you will actually echo about 80% of the general population close to any of the ski areas in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic. Most forecasters may share a snowy forecast in terms of “HOW BAD this winter is going to be”, whereas most of our readers will be polishing up our equipment and readying it for another batch of days on the slopes.

THE Final Tally of August 2024 Fogs: 16

As we looked around at the highest elevations on Aug 31st, things were pretty clear. However, MOST of the High Country was blanketed in probably the thickest fog of the month from Valle Crucis to Mountain City to Boone, and the surrounding area.

In our official, unofficial counting of the beans, we have tallied (16) total foggy mornings and if folklore can be trusted, we should see (16) snowfalls this winter of 4″ or more. Hmmmmm. Let’s see, 64″ of snow for Boone and Blowing Rock would be a bit above normal for a typical winter snow tally. However, if you are atop Beech and Sugar Mountain, that 64″ would be a bit unsatisfying as they ‘average’ about 78-80″ per winter of the white gold that we call snow.

However, Beech and Sugar have only seen more than 64″ of snow TWICE since the 2016-2017 season, so perhaps we should be happy IF we get to 64″ this season. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m hoping for 100″ at all resorts in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia AND 200″ at our West Virginia and Maryland ski areas.

Let’s get some positive thinking behind that.

The photo of the day up top and below is from the Watauga campus of CCC&TI.

Here below is the Mountain City (TN/NC border) camera this morning.

NOW TO SOME WAY TOO EARLY 2024-2025 WINTER FORECASTS

Here’s where I am going to push all of my chips into the center and ‘bet the house’ that NONE of the forecasters will get it right again this winter.

Every year, for the last ten seasons, we’ve heard from dozens of meteorologists and in every one of those last ten seasons, they’ve gotten the forecast wrong. Most of the last ten winters, they’ve missed the forecast by a long shot.

Last year was a huge miss. Most every weather prognosticator predicted 10% more snow than usual. That didn’t happen. Sure, the West Virginia ski mountains of Canaan Valley Resort and Timberline Mountain saw 132″, but that was significantly less than the 180″ per season that their marketing departments have always shared. (The actually 20+ year average is closer to 150″ although that hasn’t been reached since the 2013-2014 season, when 157.6″ fell.)

The North Carolina ski mountains, particularly Beech and Sugar would kill for 132″ of snow in a winter, but they traditional see around 80″ of snow – or at least that HAD BEEN the 20+ year average – until the LAST 20 years when Beech and Sugar have averaged 67.25″ each winter.

So I’m not going to bet ANYTHING on fogs, acorns, groundhogs or NOAA.

DUELING “WXPERTS”.

(First of all, as I was JUST typing up this story, I typed the subtitle as “Dueling WXperts” and immediately thought “DAMN”, I just coined that phrase. Nope. I quickly jumped over to purchase the domain with visions of creating something that our own Brad Panovich and Kenny Griffin could play on. But nope, someone else thought of it first. It is not being USED, per se, but that just goes to show you that there are not THAT MANY original thoughts out there.”

EDITOR’S NOTE & TRUE STORY…

Back in 1995-1996 as I was starting out in the business of web design and was purchasing and building our SkiNC.com, SkiSoutheast.com, HighCountryWebCams.com and ResortCams.com – I did something kind of cool one day and one of my three daughters (at the time) yelled, “GO DADDY!”. I swear, my thought ran to, “I’m going to go purchase that domain name and do something with it.”

About 30 months later, in March of 1999 somebody DID purchase GoDaddy.com…and the rest is history. Of course, I wasn’t thinking about selling domain names; my thoughts were to relate funny “Way to GO Daddy” stories.

Such is life… and NOW back to our regularly scheduled story –

“DUELING WXPERTS”…

So I was minding my own business yesterday when this caught my eye, forecasting “THE WORST (BEST) OF WINTER” for our region this winter. My mind quickly grabbed that news as if it was the Holy Grail, until cynicism and pessimism brought me back down to earth. You know how it is these days; the moment you click on ANY story, you’ll get nothing BUT stories related to that for the next millenium!

[Be careful when clicking on any Ana de Armas stories.] I’m not kidding and I apologize honey!

So as I as enjoying my adrenaline high of a snowy winter (or Ana. I’m not certain.) I saw THIS from NOAA.

So what is a snow loving, eternal optimist – but disappointed for a decade – supposed to do?

NADA. NAUGHT. ZIP. ZILCH. NOTHING. ZERO. NIL.

Okay, we will share what we are provided to share, but I’m personally not going to believe how SUBPAR this winter’s snows might be and I am not putting ANY hope in it being the snowiest winter since the excellent, back-to-back seasons of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. (Every ski mountain in the region rejoiced with 38%-50% MORE SNOW than normal.)

That said, stay tuned to this website and we will update the fog counts every day or so, and we will start sharing winter forecasts to allow you guys to gripe or dream.

Til next time…email me anytime at [email protected] (If you want to make sure I see your email this time of year, email me at [email protected]

By the way, Kenny and I will be out and about the region next week, getting some of the more popular cams online. Also, I will be enjoying the next two months that remain in our lake season here at gorgeous Watauga Lake.

Later…