Snowfall totals, and more Grandfather Mountain

I saw a list of North Carolina snowfall totals for the 2013-14 season, while I was looking around on various weather bulletin boards the other day. I don't recall exactly where I saw it, but I think it was at the American Wx page (www.americanwex.com).

Anyways, I was struck at the lack of uniformity in snowfall in various parts of the state. Some reporting stations within a few miles of each other had very different totals.

I think these totals came from CoCoRaHS observers, so they might not be the same numbers you get from the official National Weather Service reporting stations.

By the way ... I wrote a story online last week about the recruiting drive for more CoCoRaHS observers. Sometime in the next few days, I'll devote one day of this blog to some of the interviews I conducted with those observers. They are really neat people -- true weather geeks.

But back to the snow ...

In our part of the state, most of the snow fell Feb. 10-13. We had some light snow on the night of Monday, Feb. 10, then about an inch on grassy surfaces on Tuesday, Feb. 11. The major snow fell on Feb. 12 and 13.

Anyways, here are some of the numbers I culled:

Mount Mitchell ... 35.5 inches

Boone ... 33.8

Winston-Salem ... 16.3

Greensboro ... 15.3

New Bern ... 14 (kind of strange for a coastal area to be among the state leaders, but that's the way it works sometimes)

Rockingham ... 10.3

Salisbury ... 10.1

Concord ... 9.6

Asheville ... 9.4

Charlotte ... 9.3

Hickory ... 8.7

Greenville ... 7.2

Raleigh ... 5.8 (that number seems low)

Wilmington ... 0.6

Snow-lovers are never satisfied, but it seems as if they had a good year.  It always kind of intrigues me how people in the Carolinas cheer for snow, while their counterparts in the North would be happy to have snow-less winters.

More on Grandfather Mountain ,,, Yesterday, I wrote about the iconic Grandfather Mountain sign being crushed by wind gusts Sunday. The sign had stood for more than 50 years in Linville, but the impact of rough weather over those five decades finally claimed the sign.

Today, I heard from Sherry Fletcher, who says she and a group of people are lobbying officials to replace the sign -- with something resembling the original Grandfather Mountain sign. She says they have a Facebook page with 600 members. Here's a link, if you're interested -- https://www.facebook.com/groups/498965223547384/

And I have a correction to make. Yesterday, I wrote that the 13 inches of snow in February at Grandfather Mountain set a record for the month. I should have known better, because that total is far too low for a record.

Anyways, Kellen Short of Grandfather Mountain sent me a note today, reminding me that the February total was the most for this season.  He says they believe the February record is 36.81 inches of snow, in 1971.  And the record for any one month is 64.05 inches in March 1960.  That, of course, is the month when it snowed every Wednesday over much of the state.