Overnight the temperature dropped to 25° F at the Newfound Gap weather station, elevation 5,000 ft. Mt LeConte at 6400 ft above sea level recorded a low temperature of 31° F.  The slight warming at 1,400 ft higher in elevation is caused by a temperature inversion that most frequently happens in autumn mornings.

The lowest temperature recored at Mt. LeConte for September 29 was 24° F and that happened in 2003. The coldest night ever recorded since 1988 was -22° F, which occurred last February 4.

Station reports for 7:30 am, September 28 – 7:30 am, September 29:

STATION             ELEV    HIGH    LOW     PCPN    SNOW DEPTH
SUGARLAND CENTER    1600     75      45     0.00
NEWFOUND GAP        5000     62      25     0.00
CADES COVE          1900     73      44     0.00
OCONALUFTEE         2040     79      42     0.00
MOUNT LECONTE       6400     57      31     0.01

http://www.outrageGIS.com/weather/grsm

Look Rock, Sept. 24

After a few months of intermittent outage, all four weather observation cameras for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are now operational. We archive full-day animations for 3 webcams and the visible satellite view of the park every day at:

http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/yesterday.

For previous days, you can access other days by replacing “yesterday” with the 6-digit year month day combination. For example, for September 24, 2009 replace “yesterday” with “090924″and create this link:
http://www.outragegis.com/weather/img/animation/090924.

For highest resolution images, just click on the preview images.

The two National Park cameras are located on Look Rock and Purchase Knob. Look Rock camera overlooks most of the park. The two National Forest cameras, Cold Mountain and Joyce Kilmer Wilderness, overlook small portions of the park.

Now let’s watch fall pass in the mountains!