First Snow of the season for the North Carolina Mountains

The 2010-2011 ski season kicked off this past weekend when 4-5” of snowfall at many elevations above 3500’. Only Sugar Mountain in Avery County and Cataloochee in Haywood County opened though early Saturday morning. It was the second earliest opening in Sugar Mountains history and for The “Cat” if was early but not as early as Halloween weekend a few years ago. For Charlotte we saw some Graupel(soft hail) with this storm but no snow, just loads of early cold temperatures. Sunday morning we tied the record low of 26° set in 1998 and we only had a high both Saturday and Sunday of 54°. The average high is 66° and the average low is 44° for this time of the year. For more on the ski season and for my ski forecast check out skinc.comlogo

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Above is the visible satellite picture showing the snowcapped mountains of NC and TN Sunday morning.

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
SPOTTER REPORTS
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREENVILLE-SPARTANBURG SC
1120 AM EST SUN NOV 7 2010

THE FOLLOWING ARE UNOFFICIAL OBSERVATIONS TAKEN DURING THE PAST 2
HOURS FOR THE STORM THAT HAS BEEN AFFECTING OUR REGION. APPRECIATION
IS EXTENDED TO HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTS...COOPERATIVE OBSERVERS...SKYWARN
SPOTTERS AND MEDIA FOR THESE REPORTS. THIS SUMMARY IS ALSO AVAILABLE
ON OUR HOME PAGE AT WEATHER.GOV/GSP

********************STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL********************

LOCATION STORM TOTAL TIME/DATE COMMENTS
SNOWFALL OF
(INCHES) MEASUREMENT


NORTH CAROLINA

...AVERY COUNTY...
BEECH MOUNTAIN 4.8 1000 AM 11/7 COOP - 5053 FT.
FLAT SPRINGS 3.1 1000 AM 11/7 COOP - 3355 FT.
BANNER ELK 0.5 1000 AM 11/7 COOP - 3770 FT.

...BUNCOMBE COUNTY...
LEICESTER 3.5 1000 AM 11/7 6.3 NW COCORAHS -
2325 FT.
CANDLER 0.3 1000 AM 11/7 2.7 ENE COCORAHS -
2135 FT.

...BURKE COUNTY...
LINVILLE FALLS 0.1 1000 AM 11/7 COCORAHS 0.5 SW -
3362 FT.

...HAYWOOD COUNTY...
WAYNESVILLE 3.7 1000 AM 11/7 4.7 NW COCORAHS -
3450 FT.
WAYNESVILLE 2.9 1000 AM 11/7 4.7 W COCORAHS -
3450 FT.
WAYNESVILLE 1.8 1000 AM 11/7 3.9 E COCORAHS -
3507 FT.
WAYNESVILLE 1.0 1000 AM 11/7 0.7 ENE COCORAHS -
2680 FT.
CANTON 0.4 1000 AM 11/7 8 SSE COCORAHS -
3651 FT.

...MADISON COUNTY...
SPRING CREEK 5.5 1028 AM 11/7 MAX PATCH MOUNTAIN
LUCK 5.0 1030 AM 11/7 DOGGETT GAP
SPRING CREEK 3.0 1032 AM 11/7 SPRING CREEK VFD

...MITCHELL COUNTY...
BAKERSVILLE 2.1 1000 AM 11/7 5.4 N COCORAHS -
3832 FT.

...YANCEY COUNTY...
MOUNT MITCHELL STATE 5.0 1000 AM 11/7 COOP - 6240 FT.
BURNSVILLE 0.3 1000 AM 11/7 7 W COCORAHS - 2578 FT.

Pictures