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Flaky Weather
Snowfall in mountains blows this way and that, with some places getting 1-2 inches, others getting flurries
Journal Photo by Monte Mitchell
Chris Geis, an employee of the town of Blowing Rock, clears snow off a sidewalk on Main Street after the mountains were hit with an early snowfall.
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Published: November 19, 2008
BOONE - The season's coldest air so far pushed into the Carolinas yesterday, bringing snow to the Northwest North Carolina mountains that ranged from a dusting to several inches.
Schools were closed in Ashe, Watauga, Avery, Mitchell, Yancey and Madison counties.
The arctic air is coming down from central Canada and over the Great Lakes, said Robert Stonefield, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's office in Blacksburg, Va.
"It has come in early this year," Stonefield said. "It kind of caught some people by surprise."
Gusty winds blew the snow sideways at times late yesterday morning and early afternoon in Boone and Blowing Rock before the flurries tapered off. The main roads were largely passable.
The snow depth varied a good bit, with Boone and Blowing Rock getting an inch or two, while some parts of eastern Watauga County just got flurries that didn't stick to the ground.
Temperatures in the region are expected to remain unusually low for this time of year. High temperatures today are expected to reach 45 degrees in Winston-Salem, with a low of 27 expected tonight. In the mountains, high temperatures of 35 to 40 are expected, with lows in the teens.
During the last 53 years of weather data at Grandfather Mountain, the average low temperature for November has been 32 degrees. The low there yesterday was 11 degrees.
Ray Russell, a professor at Appalachian State University who operates www.raysweather.com, said that yesterday was the coldest Nov. 18 that Boone has seen in 49 years.
"That's really going to be true across the mountains," he said.
Ski-resort operators were happy with the cold.
Round-the-clock snow-making was going full speed at Appalachian Ski Mountain yesterday, with plans to open for the season on Friday, said Brad Moretz, the general manager.
"We've still got an outstanding snow-making forecast through the weekend," Moretz said. "I think we're going to have the best opening we've ever seen. We'll have all the slopes, most of the lifts. It's going to be amazing for this time of year."
Sugar Mountain Resort opened for the season Monday and got more than 2 inches of natural snow yesterday.
Ski Beech is scheduled to open Saturday.
Hawksnest, which will open Friday, is dropping skiing this season and expanding its tubing runs to 20 lanes, making it the largest snow-tubing operation in the eastern United States.
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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