It is going to be a sweet Saturday.
The combination of fresh snow throughout the week, cold temps, and snowmaking have given us some top-notch conditions this weekend.
Today’s featured image is from Snowshoe Mountain and just shows how incredible things are looking.
We had some light natural snow – nothing more than a trace – fall at a few resorts to help provide a winter ambiance. The mountains missed out on the winter storm hitting the eastern part of North Carolina and Virginia.
The bigger story for the mountains is the cold temperatures.
It is almost a repeat of yesterday morning (with it being a tad colder in a few spots). I did stumble across this interesting stat from retired Winter Weather Expert Tom Niziol.
#Frigid in the East, -30F at the Canaan Valley #WV "sink" station, while on the rim, <1 mile away and 1,000 ft. higher its 36F warmer. Read my blog on "temperature sinks" here: https://t.co/9WrNJHViTb #weather #nature @NWSCharlestonWV @weatherchannel pic.twitter.com/OPdsn6t2vH
— Tom Niziol (@TomNiziol) January 22, 2022
That is frigid. Tom also noted in a follow-up tweet that it is 71 degrees colder in Canaan Valley than in Anchorage, Alaska.
In fact, Anchorage (43°) is 20 degrees warmer than our “warmest” resort Ski Sapphire Valley this morning (23°).
Pretty cool.
All that to say, it is pretty cold out.
If you are hitting the slopes today or tomorrow, be sure to purchase your tickets in advance if possible.
It is going to be a busy weekend.
For the full details, be sure to visit the Snow Reports page.
Here are a few notables for your Saturday.
- J-Hook at Snowshoe is set to open today with Knotbumper on deck tomorrow.
Speaking of new terrain, Winterplace is expected to open Ridge Runner and Woods Run this morning. - Other new terrain opening up includes over at Omni Homestead as they added three runs to the offerings, while Canaan Valley was able to add the natural snow trails back to the mix. Wisp add four trails – including Main Street – on Friday – and shared more terrain was to come.
- As of 8a, the only resort that had hit capacity was Snowshoe on the basin side (Silver Creek Only tickets remain). That is expected to change throughout the day so it is best to prepurchase tickets, tubing, rentals, etc. if you can.
- One other quick note about the Canaan Valley temperature that I talked about earlier – the Virginia Tech weather research site in the north end of the valley measured an all-time low of -30.7° since record keeping began in 1944. Thanks to David Lesher for that info.
- Snowmaking has continued throughout this run of cold temperatures, but we are seeing a several resorts shut things down during sessions.
It will be a great – but busy – day to hit the slopes.
Social Shares
A few social posts for your Saturday.
That does it for today, but until tomorrow, #ThinkSnow!
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