Current Conditions
Banner Elk

Temp: 18.6°F

Forecast Last Updated at Friday, November 21, 2008 at 1:46PM

Third in a Week

Three snow events in one week and its not even Thanksgiving yet?! Snow this morning has been more impressive than forecast so obviously 3 is indeed a charm!... Snow totals are topping out 3"-6" at higher elevations and western upslope areas near the TN/NC line, a 2"-4" for most, and a dusting to 2" at the 2500' (and lower) elevations on the east side of the Appalachians near the Blue Ridge. Snow showers have tapered off so expect partly cloudy skies the rest of this afternoon and tonight. Temperatures will be very cold through tonight rivaling what we experienced Tuesday. This weekend will be dry with below normal temperatures but not nearly as cold as today.

The 2009 RWC Calendars are on sale now. Calendars are showing up in stores now. $2 from the sale of every calendar will go to the Hospitality House Combined Campaign.

Friday Hi: 23 Lo: 11 Partly cloudy; Cold & breezy; NW wind 10-20 mph with gusts to 35 mph (5-15 mph at night)

Saturday Hi: 34 Lo: 15 Partly to mostly cloudy; Chilly; NW wind 5-15 mph becoming light at night

Sunday Hi: 42 Lo: 27 Mostly clear day, becoming cloudy at night; Not as cold; SW wind 5-10 mph

Monday Hi: 41 Lo: 25 Cloudy; Rain during the day & evening; Turning colder at night with rain changing to snow showers or flurries

Tuesday Hi: 30 Lo: 23 Mostly cloudy; Colder; Maybe early flurries, then nighttime snow showers possible

Further Out

Wednesday - More sun; Chilly; High in the upper 30s; Low in the mid 20s
Thursday - Increasing PM clouds; Cool temps; High in the mid 40s; Low in the upper 20s

Forecast Discussion

Here are the latest snow reports:
Sugar Mtn, 4"
Beech Mtn 5"
Boone 3"
Spruce Pine 2"
Cherokee Cove (Stone Mountain) 4"
Blowing Rock 4"
Newland 4"
Bakersville 3"-4"
Burnsville 2"

It's been a long time since we have had this much snow in November. But this year does not come close to 1968 when we had three significant snow events in mid November--the archives show: 5.5" on Nov 10, 11" on Nov 12-13, and 1" on Nov 20 for a total of 17.5" by Nov 21, 1968.

Snow showers and flurries have ended. The event unexpectedly took the flavor of a clipper-type system adding a couple inches to expected snow totals. We have ended up with 3"-6" at higher elevations and western upslope areas near the TN/NC line, a 2"-4" for most, and a dusting to 2" at the 2500' (and lower) elevations on the east side of the Appalachians near the Blue Ridge. Skies will be partly cloudy the rest of this afternoon, but temperatures will remain very cold through tonight.

Saturday and Sunday, temperatures will be gradually milder but still well below normal. Lots of clouds Saturday will also impede that temperature recovery. It's going to be great weather for that first weekend of skiing this season--ski conditions will be about the best ever for the opening of the season.

Clouds will increase Sunday night ahead of a front moving eastward across the center of the country. That front will move through here late Monday with an associated upper-level low centered near Lake Erie. Expect a cool rain Monday especially in the afternoon; however, precipitation is expected to change to snow showers Monday night as colder air arrives behind the front. Snow showers will continue well into Tuesday.

Looking ahead to Thanksgiving Day and next weekend... Wednesday will have more sun with temperatures below normal but not as cold as Tuesday. Thanksgiving Day looks cool and dry with increasing clouds in the afternoon and evening. Rain will be possible late next Friday into Saturday.

Announcements

RaysWeather.Com continues to grow. We are an "information age" company using the web to broadcast the message but also as a tool for producing the message. RaysWeather.Com (what we call RWC) has evolved from "Ray's hobby in Beautiful Downtown Rutherwood" in 1999 to the most widely read media outlet in NW NC reaching 150,000 to 200,000 people per month and covering the weather from NC/VA line to Asheville and Wolf Laurel. We will continue to grow geographically as well--Roaring Gap and Waynesville were recently added; Black Mountain will be up and running very soon. The heart of the growth is good data, "local flavor", and THE most reliable forecast.

We recently added our 6th forecaster to the best forecast team ever assembled for this region. It's time for us to introduce "the crew"...

• Dr. Ray Russell is a Computer Science professor at Appalachian State University. His PhD is in Computer Science from Georgia Tech (1989); weather has been a long-time passion. He started posting a "snow forecast" on the university website back in the mid 1990's; this evolved into RaysWeather.Com in 2000. Ray lives in Boone and has taught at Appalachian State since 1991.
• Eric Anderson (RWC's Chief Meteorologist) received his degree in meteorology from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and is a 15-year veteran of NOAA with experience in forecasting, observation and analysis. A native of western North Carolina, Eric's former tenure in the National Weather Service gave him the opportunity to forecast for areas of the Mid-Atlantic region. His professional interests include upslope flow snow events in the southern Appalachians, as well as cold air damming in the Carolinas.
• Alan Simons, born in Fayetteville NC, has a Bachelor of Science in meteorology and almost 20 years of professional experience that includes forecasting for newspapers, websites, radio, aviation, and the military. He first became interested in weather in North Carolina, and RWC takes him back home after a variety of duty stations, from New York to Hawaii. Alan's been with the RWC team since 2003.
• Tim Kirby joined Ray's Weather Center in October 2004 and lives in his hometown of Fries, VA (pronounced Freeze). The folks from this small Grayson County town say "it's freeze in winter and fries in summer". He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from NC State University. While at NC State, he was president of the NCSU Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society. Before joining RWC, Tim worked for the National Weather Service for ten years in Raleigh, Chattanooga and Morristown, Tennessee. Tim has always loved the challenge of forecasting and owes his dedication to a childhood fascination of snow (no school!).
• Harold Alston is a N.C. native with Bachelor of Science degrees from both App State (Broadcast Communications) and UNC-Asheville (Meteorology). He has 30 years experience tracking and forecasting NC weather including 15 years experience for media outlets. Nailing down Appalachian wedges & wintry possibilities are his areas of expertise with a lifetime of N.C. weather experiences to reference.
• Jeff Cox, a native of Asheville, is the latest addition to the RWC team. He earned a Bachelor of Sciences in Atmospheric Sciences from UNC-Asheville. At UNC-A, he was the lead forecaster for the school's Weather Forecast Line, campus Radio Station, "The Blue Echo" and the campus newspaper, "The Blue Banner." Jeff has experience as a meteorologist in both television and radio. He spent over 2 years in Macon, GA, as the chief meteorologist at WGXA FOX-24. He also has experience as a radio broadcast meteorologist for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia.