Moonhowl

Looks like we may score enough down here in the French Broad Valley to get my first white Christmas ever.  I was visiting relatives in Raleigh during the 2010 storm which was a Boxing Day storm for Raleigh although did see some flakes well after dark on Christmas.  The wife and I will be hanging out by the wood stove and hopefully seeing at least some flurries after sunrise on Christmas day.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

now time to go check on the NAM

32.5 F IMBY and thankfully not seeing any ice

Still quite toasty at 34 F IMBY.

Seized the opportunity to take a pre-storm ride on the closed Blue Ridge Parkway; there were still a few small ice patches this afternoon but absolutely beautiful day!  Would not want to be on it tomorrow morning.

2 minutes ago, Buckethead said:

I lived way too close to the Party Rock/ Lake Lure wildfire a few years ago. There's worse things than a huge rainfall surplus.

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After multiple years of excess rain and raining or the threat of rain every day throughout this past summer, I have thought that a dry spell would be nice.  But in the back of my mind it has always been be careful what you wish for.  Party Rock/Lake Lure and Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge...wasn't that long ago.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Look forward to hopefully seeing some snow flakes in December; for now I like seeing this thing of beauty:

Cataloochee this morning:

There are some snow blowers running at the top of Cataloochee right now.

I may have posted at least one of these inversion photos before.  You can barely see it but the first photo shows what I believe is a bit of an energetic heat plume from the Skyland plant breaking through the inversion layer.  The second photo, seems to include moisture from the French Broad River:

55 minutes ago, Sw NC weather said:

That’s okay with me as long as we flip it at the beginning of December into a consistent cold pattern.

That would be far superior to getting the flip to cold at the beginning of April like this past one. 

Bottomed out at 27 F IMBY.

Glad Zeta from where I am sitting was not remotely as bad as Ivan or Opal and despite the very active season the mountains in general have not had the horrible tropical season that was in 2004.

Hopefully done with the tropics but not counting on it (something brewing out there now); looking forward to seeing some snow.

Happy Halloween

Just had the strongest gust so far; still think it was below 40 mph

So far max at KAVL has been 33 mph.

1 minute ago, Rainforrest said:

82 mph gust reported in cashiers

Holy cow! 

I still don't think I have topped 30 mph IMBY and hope it stays that way.

Duke Energy outage map

So far the wind has not been bad down here in the valley (famous last words); fortunately the rain is starting to slack off.  About 3.3" IMBY.

1 minute ago, Rainforrest said:

Wind sounds like a freight train. 

I don't like the sound of that (yes, bad humor)

22 minutes ago, strongwxnc said:

What kind of wind are you getting?

I am guessing gusts around 25 mph so not looking good for the power when it increases.

Per Duke Energy there is an outage relatively close to me which I am sure is related to the power blinking I was experiencing.

Power blinking and about 2" of rain so far including yesterday.  Hope the trees stay off of everyone's homes.

57 minutes ago, Sw NC weather said:

To bad we can’t time them up together. LOL

Well, we did have something like that in March 1993

1 hour ago, BretWx said:

Up to 105mph now. I'm guessing we'll probably see some gusts over the 40mph they're wrote. Finally some interesting weather!

Yea, a little too interesting; how about nice 6 or  7 inch snowstorm instead.  We will see what happens...definitely a middle of the night alarm clock will be set to get up and check the weather. 

40 minutes ago, cold air aloft said:

Those of us who were around these parts in 1995 remember what high elevation tree damage tree damage Opal did. I sure hope we don't see a repeat of that but be safe out there y'all.

I remember attempting to sleep through Opal; that was a lost cause.  Recall hearing the wind gusts approaching like a freight train. 

Wife and I sat on the porch and watched the trees whip back and forth during Ivan.

Once again getting rain well out ahead of the main event.  Just took the leaf blower to my very steep and potentially slick driveway; trying to beat the rain but ended up doing half of it while getting rained on.  Was not expecting it this early.  Probably not getting much sleep tonight.