Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

January 4, 2007 issue

Ray's Weather Review of 2006 Weather

Let’s look back at 2006.

Taking a “big picture” view, we started 2006 with neutral El Niño/La Niña (ENSO) signal and ended the year with a weak El Niño. However, the ENSO signal did not play a huge impact on our weather until the fall. Last winter was dominated by strong westerly winds aloft that swept across the Continental US out of the Pacific, making it very difficult for cold air to move south out of Canada. Cold air was trapped on the “wrong” side of the North Pole in Russia (where they had the coldest winter in 50 years), and in turn, precipitation here last winter was well below normal and temperatures were above normal. The most significant item of the summer and fall was the lack of Atlantic tropical development: only 9 named storms, 5 of those reaching hurricane-strength, and only 3 tropical storms affecting the United States (Alberto, Beryl, and Ernesto). This welcome absence of tropical activity was probably the result of the developing weak El Niño and a more influential than usual Saharan Air Layer (SAL) carrying dry, dust-laden air over the tropical Atlantic. During the fall, we began to feel the effects of the weak El Niño in the form of frequent lows affecting the southern United States and more precipitation than normal in September, November and December.

Temperatures in 2006 were .5 to 1 degree above normal. The average temperature in 2006 in Boone was 52.10 degrees compared to a 70-year average of 51.10. On Beech Mountain, the average temperature was 46.37 compared to a 15-year average of 45.88. There was only one significant cold snap of note: on December 8 the temperature atop Beech fell to -1 and Boone recorded a low of 8.6. In contrast, the warmest temperature last year in Boone was 87.8 on August 1. We had 50 days in Boone in 2006 when the temperature reached 80 degrees. The average number of days with a high of 80 or more is 38. (The least number of days with temperatures 80 or above was 3 in 1974, and the greatest number of days with temperatures of 80+ was 107 in 1941—glad I wasn’t around for that one.)

Total precipitation for the year was 53.32”, almost exactly average. However, the first five months were drier than normal (April was the only exception), and the last seven months were wetter than normal. Snow? Oh my, are the snow dogs are howling? Last winter, Boone recorded only 26” of snow (13” below normal) and Beech Mountain recorded 79” of snow (just slightly below normal). However, we kept enough cold in place last winter for the ski slopes to keep all the slopes in good shape virtually all winter long. So far this winter (November and December), the snow drought continues with only 2” in Boone and 10” on Beech. The fleeting cold blasts so far this winter have barely kept the ski operators “noses above water.”

At one point, we called the winter of 2005-2006 the “Winter of Wind” with more wind events than snow events. Wind is the most difficult weather element to summarize across the region; wind speeds at a particular location depend on elevation, orientation and nearby obstructions. Like people, every location is unique. For this, I’ll choose an anemometer just east of Boone as the most representative for the region. The highest wind gust recorded there was January 24 at 62 mph. For a variety of reasons, we suspect that wind gusts recorded on this particular gauge are about 10% less than the actual wind gust. This anemometer recorded wind gusts over 50 mph in 10 days last year, 7 of those in January. Of course mountaintops have much higher wind gusts. A good estimate of mountaintop wind gusts would be to double the readings from this anemometer; that technique would render an estimated strongest wind gust of roughly 125 mph last year on the mountaintops.

Finally, we are all indebted to the good folks at Fred’s General Mercantile atop Beech Mountain for providing data about “the air up there.” Also, with the redevelopment of the raysweather.com website in June 2006, we have far greater capacity to record and analyze archived data from our 33 weather stations. Next year, we will be able to provide far more year-end tidbits. The only limitation as usual will be time—our ongoing saying is “so much data, so little time.”

From all of us at raysweather.com, Have a great 2007!