Moonhowl

13 hours ago, jburns said:

 I usually avoid posting in the mountain thread since it has been years since I lived up there. However, today I got a piece of inside information about an ominous sign sent directly from the old man of the mountain himself.  My daughter has been a keeper at the Grandfather Mountain Wildlife Center for several years. She paid me a visit today and told me that for the first time since she has been there the bears have not gone into anything resembling hibernation even though they have cut their food allowance greatly to encourage it. 

The bears were roaming around my neighborhood the other day as well.  I have seen them out in January before but don't remember how winter panned out after that.

5 hours ago, Met1985 said:

So far this has been one of the worst winters ever... Still all it takes is one or two big storms. 

Well,there is always March and April when the teleconnections do their seemingly annual shift to a cold pattern 

1 hour ago, superjames1992 said:

 Glad to be back for the heartbreak and broken promises after three winters in Florida. 

Well, your chances of snow in Durham are about the same as Florida.  The good news it is an easy drive to Roxboro

13 hours ago, WarmNose said:

Just looking at slope cams, it looks like Beech and Sugar are running those snow guns full throttle. Should be a great head start on the ski season 

Sugar Mtn was looking kind of pathetic yesterday afternoon on the webcams and had one slope open.  Back open to the top now; I'll be hitting (hopefully not too literally) the slopes later this week for the second time this season.

They were shutting gates on the Parkway around Asheville this afternoon.  Almost ran straight into one on my bicycle.

Have a dusting of snow here in town; minor coating on the deck but roads appear fine.

On 11/8/2019 at 11:11 AM, WxKnurd said:

Cataloochee already opened but they are always first.  Sugar is looking to open by Thanksgiving I believe my brother-in-law said (he works there)

Update; Sugar Mountain is open today; wax'm up

22 hours ago, BlueRidgeFolklore said:

I'll play the other side a little. 

It's not that we have forgotten, it's just that in my mind those truly great color years aren't as frequent as we like to believe. At least not in my lifetime. 2015 was absolutely spectacular but it seems to be on par with how frequent we get those years.

IIRC, fall color in 1993 was outstanding; that has been a few minutes.  I have not seen one as good since.

Was on the Parkway up to Mt. Mitchell yesterday; there was some splashes of color here and there;  colors seemed to suggest that it will not be a brown out this year, we will see...

Nothing like kicking off the fall and winter thread with a heatwave but yes, thinking about snow is a pleasant diversion from the heat.  Hoping for our third consecutive year with a December snow storm and enough cold air this winter for the ski resorts to stay in business.

Can't believe KAVL hit 91 F on 9-9-19.  IIRC Jason Boyer said that beat the maximum high temp for the months of June and August this summer.

9 hours ago, KPITSnow said:

Welp, so much for that sub 950 pressure njwx was basically wishcasting for last night. 

Well, pressure at Frying Pan right now is 839 mb.

Frying Pan Knob that is.

NHC discussion of the intensity:

Dorian could maintain this intensity for about 12 hours or so,
but guidance is showing shear increasing, and that should result
in gradual weakening. The intensity forecast is basically the same
as the previous advisory, keeping Dorian at the border of category 2
or 3 intensity as it moves near the southeast coast of the United
States. This forecast is consistent with the intensity models, which
unanimously gradually weaken the cyclone.

9 minutes ago, yotaman said:

We have decided to come home tomorrow from our trip, cutting it short by 2 days. Luckily the airline has allowed us to change our flight at no charge due to Dorian. Thursday is going to be busy since we have no food or gas for the generator. Hopefully it will either miss us big time or weaken as it comes up the coast and not be a big issue.

Good luck, sending big miss vibes your way.  At least we can be confident it isn't going to be hanging around very long.

26 minutes ago, fyrfyter said:

 

I thought about this as well. Just looking over the last few days, it seemed like 25-33% showed landfalls. That's a big problem considering any one of those ensemble runs could be correct.

 

I think this is a lot of the reason why so many of the states are clearing out there coasts. There is way too much uncertainty on this one. The forecast seems to change with each model run. If it were minor changes, I think they would have been more conservative on evacuations.

 

I heard at some point, one model spread was 70 miles in width.

No doubt it is stressing me out; I have family in Wilmington, NC and Raleigh, NC although not as worried about Raleigh.

Not going to bother to count but for Dorian, I wonder how many individual model runs posted are on the left side of the NHC cone of uncertainty vs. the right side...

Well, to keep it real, the last place in the world to come for an objective view of the true probability of landfall is a weather message board; I suppose it serves the purpose of compiling in one place all the worst case scenarios which certainly aren't beyond the realm of possibility.

From the 5 PM NHC discussion:

The eye has been shrinking, and an eyewall replacement cycle is
possibly occurring.  The effect of the island terrain and the
eyewall replacement cycle should result in some slight fluctuations
in intensity during the next 24 to 36 hours, but the hurricane will
continue to be extremely dangerous one during that time.

1 minute ago, Solak said:

180mph

913mb

 

Wow, grim to say the least; hopefully, this means eyewall replacement very soon.

9 minutes ago, downeastnc said:

 

 

That north turn is nuts, 75 miles one way or the other in the timing of that turn has huge implications for Florida and the Carolina's...

It would be nice if it stayed to the right side of the cone and that re-curve showing up on the GFS sends it back out to sea before landfall; as you said what an enormous difference +- 75 miles could make...

Looking forward to the weather than next few days, sunshine with a hint of fall.  The radar this morning has the NWFS look at the TN border counties

On 7/15/2019 at 1:27 PM, BlueRidgeFolklore said:

My son starts football this week and it got me thinking about how fall is right around the corner. I noticed the CPC 4 days ago put out a discussion stating their belief that we're headed toward ENSO-neutral through fall and winter. So for the sake of breaking up the silence, what is everyone projecting for fall heading into winter here in the mountains?

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.shtml

So much for breaking up the silence, the only thing I project is more activity when snow is showing up on the short range models.  Until then, enjoy the rest of the Summer, Fall...maybe anther late Fall snow this year, we will see.

16 hours ago, Buckethead said:

Feels like summer today!  Currently sitting at 71° at 4400'.

I may be in the minority here but I love summer; now if I lived in the Piedmont probably not so much.

5 hours ago, BretWheatley said:

Close to 6 in Mountain Home. House flooded again. Sigh... Happy "Good" Friday!

Turned out my basement was flooding about the time I was posting the frowny face about your house flooding.  Ended up with about 5.3" IMBY.  Still made it out to take a few pictures of the $850,000 soccer field project:

Now 4 inches of water dumped IMBY and still pouring.  More inches of rain than I had snow for the December 18 storm.

City of Asheville was in the middle of spending big bucks on soccer fields that I am sure are or will be under water yet again:

https://wlos.com/news/local/asheville-city-to-pay-875k-to-help-repair-soccer-complex-at-azalea-park

I plan to get out a take some photos once this lets up.