From SKI SOUTHEAST www.skisoutheast.com
North Carolina and West Virginia Ski Resorts to Open!
By
Mike Doble
We’re Hearing “Noise” About Ski Resorts Opening in North Carolina and West Virginia! Sugar and Cataloochee could open Monday if not before. Appalachian and Snowshoe will open Tuesday and Wednesday! Read on…
11/17: 1pm: Snowshoe Just posted – OPENING DAY UPDATE: We are excited to see snow and cold return to the forecast for the next week! Our snowmakers will be ready and waiting the second the temperatures drop this weekend. We expect to know better early next week what our official opening day will be. While we’re not completely eliminating the chance we will be ready with limited terrain for our original target opening of Nov. 23rd, we are more realistically turning our attention to the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, or the weekend immediately after. A healthy dose of natural snow and 90+ hours of cold temperatures suitable for snowmaking would give us what we need to drop the rope with great coverage and conditions. The long range forecast suggests that winter is almost here, and that once it arrives it will settle in and be a great one for skiing and snowboarding in our mountains. Regardless of whether the skiing and riding are open for the Thanksgiving holiday, we will have shops and restaurants open, and plenty of family holiday activities in the Village, everything you need for a great get-together. Stay tuned for more updates early next week, and think SNOW! #snowshoemtn #winterwednesday
Needless to say, it has been an ultra slow start to the southeast and mid-Atlantic ski and snowboarding season. More accurately, it has been an ultra-slow start across the entire United States. Most areas have little to NO SNOW on the ground (except for western Canada and scarce portions of the northern Rockies).
Ski and Snowboarding season traditionally begins in the Southeast around Thanksgiving week and weekend with at least 2-3 ski areas opening with around 25-30% of their slopes available to play on. The first ski areas to open have normally been Cataloochee Ski Area or Sugar Mountain Resort…or Sugar Mountain Resort or Cataloochee as they tend to “battle to be first” and more times than not they open on the same day just 30 minutes or so apart from each other.
In the last five or so years – more often than not, those opening days have been as early as Halloween day or at least by November 4-5th. So far this year we’ve seen only a brief couple of nights with temps cold enough to make snow and our afternoon temperatures across the region have been in the 60s and even low 70s.
Those mild conditions continue today as highs are expected to be in the upper 50s and low 60s across much of the region. Even Snowshoe Mountain is expected to see a high today at around 55° and by tomorrow they are looking at temps in the mid 60s.
BIG CHANGES IN STORE!!!!
We are hearing a lot of chatter about the moment that the temps dive down this coming Saturday afternoon and night – the snowmaking crews across the region will be blasting the slopes with new, manmade snow. There is also a good chance for natural snow showers late on Saturday, Saturday night, Sunday and even Sunday night up around Snowshoe Resort, Canaan Valley, Timberline and potentially around Wisp Resort in Maryland.
Our own Kenny Griffin seems to think that we could see some snow showers and a possibility of a dusting-to-an-inch of snow around Beech Mountain into Sunday-Monday.
Check out the highs and lows for Snowshoe this weekend. That is pretty conducive to making snow. Temperatures look to be nearly as cold around Sugar and Beech Mountain this weekend with plenty of snowmaking temperatures and even a dusting of snow in the forecast there as well.
