Accurate Snowshoe weather
December 11, 2006
I was wondering what was the general consensus for accurate weather forecast for Snowshoe at the top of the mountain? For example currently NWS has and Weather Channel seem to have different forecasts and Snowshoes website seems to follows NWS. NWS seems to be within a couple of degrees of Marlinton at times which leads me to believe the forecast is for the base, not top of the mountain.
If you use the NWS point forecast, you can peg the forecast to any longitude and latitude. You can do this with their website, or by querying their XML feed from the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD), a forecast grid covering the US. Using this capability, you can get a very good on-mountain forecast, and you can even pick different parts of the mountain. I use a point in the basin area, about 1/3 of the way down from the top. Basically, pick a lat/lon pair (using Google Earth, Terraserver, etc) and you can get a forecast that will probably be more relevant to you than what some of the websites are using.
DCski is using the NDFD feed for the weather info, and I wrote a small weather program for Mac OS X (called Wx) that does too. I closely follow NDFD point forecasts for Snowshoe WV and Wintergreen VA, and they are quite accurate in my experience. Cenrtainly a lot more relevant than the valley forecasts you may get when looking up weather by City, St or zip code (those tend to be zone forecasts anyhow).
Rather than use the Weather Channel (where -do- they get their info) and NWS which used Hot Springs/Ingalls for their Snowshoe reading, I use the temps at Elkins,WV and subtract 6 degrees which is the rough average adiabatic lapse rate between 1888ft (Elkins) and 4267ft (Snowshoe). Generally this method is more accurate. It doesn't give the 'weather' per se, but using the correct temperature and what's happening with the barometer (from NWS) you can get a pretty accurate picture of whats happening at the top.
Adiabatic description and discussion here ...
http://www.tpub.com/content/aerographer/14312/css/14312_47.htm ... this site has all sorts of geeky physics stuff.
snow - twf the tech-grl ... lol wut an awesome chick no wonder ur the web-mistress!
ski-ya!
E.
Quote:
Rather than use the Weather Channel (where -do- they get their info) and NWS which used Hot Springs/Ingalls for their Snowshoe reading, I use the temps at Elkins,WV and subtract 6 degrees which is the rough average adiabatic lapse rate between 1888ft (Elkins) and 4267ft (Snowshoe). Generally this method is more accurate. It doesn't give the 'weather' per se, but using the correct temperature and what's happening with the barometer (from NWS) you can get a pretty accurate picture of whats happening at the top.
Adiabatic description and discussion here ... http://www.tpub.com/content/aerographer/14312/css/14312_47.htm ... this site has all sorts of geeky physics stuff.
I just wanted to make sure it's clear -- since the original poster was asking about forecasts -- that the NWS point forecast is not based on any weather observation sites such as Hot Springs or Elkins. Snowcone's technique applies to current conditions data. You could probably use it to adjust forecasts, but there is no need since point forecasts are available for the mountains.
oooo Crush! [blushing] ... you are so kind.
BTW ... bought tickets last night SLC/UT Jan 19-27 ... I CAN'T WAIT!!! We had to cancel Snowshoe for next weekend [Moscha has too much to do job-wise] so decided to book UT early so i wouldn't feel so disappointed. Man! Those airfare prices on Southwest are crazy! $230 round trip BWI/SLC non-stop I think I'll book a 2nd trip for the end of Feb at those rates!!!
I'm also job hunting out there, so with any kind of luck I'll be able to set up an interview or two.
YEEEHAW!!
