Let's summarize the conditions that you'll find no matter which resort you call your favorite! Right now if they have tubing they're OPEN; if they have snowmobiling, they're OPEN and there are MORE TRAILS AVAILABLE than at any point thus far this season! Conditions will be AWESOME, with lots of PACKED POWDER conditions showing across the region.
MORE SNOW is in the forecast for tonight into Sunday so what are you doing reading this BLOG!?!?!
Okay if you're stuck with me, let me tell you that you NEED to get a trip to the slopes planned TODAY. The conditions are amazing, awesome, sweet and about any other adjective you want to use.
I was speaking briefly with Appalachian Ski Mountain's Brad Moretz last night and he and I were talking about how just THREE days ago on Wednesday the entire area saw tons of torrential RAINS and here we are today with POWDER conditions and base depths that are 43-68" at Appalachian Ski Mountain. Brad shared that on Wednesday night they had "waterfalls" of streams running down a few of their trails washing out a lot of base on parts of the mountain. 24 hours later they were receiving a nice natural snowfall and blasting the mountain with blizzards of manmade snow!
Several of the resorts are reporting TEN INCHES of additional base depths this morning over where they were on Thursday morning! That is reflective of the ZERO to 5° temps that we have seen for morning lows since Thursday.
I did some snowmobiling at the base of Beech Mountain on Friday afternoon which was awesome. We had about 7" of snow across most of the land that we have out there. Some areas had one foot drifts which made for a great time.
That got ME stoked to head to West Virginia late on Friday. Well AT LEAST I was ready to head there. However when I called up there the ENTIRE MOUNTAIN IS BOOKED UP! They had only ONE rental available near Silvercreek and not another room or cabin available on the mountain! My daughter and a friend from Virginia Tech are at Snowshoe today and they both skied Silver Creek last night and said things were awesome. That and the foot of snow they've seen had me ready to pull the trigger but NOOOOO… I gave a moment of thought to trekking up to Wisp or one of the other Virginia or West Virginia resorts but since it was nearly 7pm, I decided to stay home and enjoy our great conditions here in the Western North Carolina mountains. We all like a little variety in life from time to time, but I'll save that for another weekend.
"SOUTHEAST SI" IS MAKING A DEBUT…
Check out the video at: https://www.skisoutheast.com/videos.php and do us a favor ans share it with your friends!
I'm not sure if this will be an annual thing, but we had a funny idea late on Friday. We thought, "Why the heck should we care what some furry varmint from Pennsylvania is going to say about the rest of winter?" We figured why not take things into our own hands. So I and my trusty dog Dakota set out to hunt down one of the local groundhogs. Our escapade reminded me of the characters on Duck Dynasty who seem bent on shooting anything that moves in a forest. However, we wanted this varmint alive!
My dog is a mix of Sheppard and Husky but looks very "wolf-like" and he quickly scouted the woods around my home and rounded up a groundhog in no time. My youngest daughter Madison came up with the name "Southeast Si" which was presumably inspired by the almost groundhog lookalike Uncle Si on the aforementioned television show.
So we coerced "Si" into becoming our prognosticator of prognosticators. It wasn't all that hard after we showed him how things would go if he didn't cooperate!
So my daughter tortured him (I mean dressed him up) outfitting him with skis, poles and a SkiSoutheast.com shirt and we released him this morning from our own little den of sorts after asking him just what the rest of winter has in store for us.
Evidently groundhog news travels fast because somehow this critter had already heard Punxatawney Phil's forecast for an early Spring. Upon asking "Si" his take on things he quickly shared that he DID NOT SEE his shadow and that we'd INDEED see an early Spring! So we tried him again…and then a THIRD TIME before he FINALLY got the message that he was going to need to see his shadow or this ordeal was not going to end well for him.
Well the third time was a charm and he started doing a little Caddyshack Jig to Kenny Loggins. That's when he shared this forecast:
On February 2nd in Sleepy Hollow did Southeast Si come out,
To share his forecast for the rest of winter, with more than a little shout.
While these snow-loving peeps held me hostage to say that the rest of winter would be COLD;
I can only share what I know to be true, so here's my forecast so BOLD.
While February will be seasonably cold to be sure, with lots of snows for the slopes;
March will arrive bringing with it Spring temps so get over it you snow loving dopes!
Okay Si is a BRAVE little fellow but it is what it is as they say and we can hope that he, PUNX PHIL and the weather gurus have it all wrong and that we'll see lots of cold and snow. For at least now ALL of February looks cold. Do us a favor and SHARE this video with your friends via Facebook and Twitter. The slopes will be in GREAT shape for the next several weeks so get out to YOUR favorite ski hill and enjoy the super conditions right now!
ACCORDING TO THE OLD FARMER'S ALMANAC…
FEBRUARY 2013: temperature 24° (6° below avg.); precipitation 0.5" (2" below avg.); Feb 1-6: Snow showers, very cold; Feb 7-10: Sunny, seasonable; Feb 11-20: Snow showers, then flurries, cold; Feb 21-28: Snow, then flurries, cold.
MARCH 2013: temperature 45° (5° above avg.); precipitation 4" (1" above avg.); Mar 1-2: Sunny, warm; Mar 3-7: Rain, then flurries, chilly; Mar 8-13: Rain, then sunny, warm; Mar 14-21: Rain to snow, then sunny, turning warm; Mar 22-28: Rainy periods, mild; Mar 29-31: Sunny, cool.
Seems to support Phil and Si. Oh WOW! I just realized that Si's brother on Duck Dynasty is named "Phil" as well. So maybe there's something to this thing that we'll bring back each Groundhog Day. Before you know it, we'll do our own festival. Ummm…maybe not.
HERE ARE THE NOTABLES:
APPALACHIAN: 11°; 100% OPEN! 1" of new Snow; 2.7" since Thursday; Made Snow
BEECH MTN: 21°; 14 of 15 TRAILS; TRACE" of new snow and 6" since Thursday; Making Snow. They are reporting 6" in the last 24 hours and we're thinking that is an oversight on their part as that is not the case. There's LOTS of snow on the ground though with plenty to go and play in.
CATALOOCHEE: 27.7; 16 of 17 TRAILS; 1.5" of new snow since Thursday; Made snow
SAPPHIRE VALLEY: 17.2°; 100% OPEN; NO new snow and did not make snow.
SUGAR MTN: 20.9°; 17 of 20 TRAILS; Trace of new snow and 6" since Thursday. Making Snow!
WOLF RIDGE: 19°; 9 of 22 TRAILS; Trace of new snow and 4.7" since Thursday. Made snow.
BRYCE RESORT: 13°; 100% OPEN! Trace of new snow and about an inch since Thursday.
MASSANUTTEN: 14°; 13 of 14 TRAILS; Trace of new snow and about an inch since Thursday. Making a BLIZZARD of snow!
THE HOMESTEAD: 9.5°; 6 of 10 TRAILS; Snowmobiles are open as well as tubing! Making snow!
WINTERGREEN: 10.1°; 25 of 26 TRAILS; 1" of snow since Thursday; Making Snow!
CANAAN VALLEY: 4°; 31 of 42 TRAILS; 1" of new snow and 12.5" since Thursday! Making Snow! More snow on the way!
SNOWSHOE MTN: MINUS 3°; 47 of 60 TRAILS; 1" of new snow and 12" since Thursday! Made snow! Is that Shavers Center LIVE CAM your favorite cam as well!?!?! http://www.resortcams.com/webcameras-snowshoe-shavers-centre.php
TIMBERLINE RESORT: 10°; 26 of 40 TRAILS; 1" of new snow and 12" since Thursday! Awesome conditions!
WINTERPLACE: 12°; 100% OPEN!; 2" of new snow and 7" since Thursday! Made snow!
WISP: 3°; 26 of 32 TRAILS; Trace of new snow and 8" since Thursday! Made snow!
OBER: 21°; 7 of 9 TRAILS; 3" of snow since Thursday! Making snow!
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