If you have used our Red River Gorge hiking map, you’ve noticed that trail intersections are labeled. This is to help read the elevation profiles. Another way to represent relative changes in elevation is with a 3D map. Below is a simple render of the core, historic trails in Natural Bridge State Resort Park. There’s about 7 miles of trail shown on this map, and they’re probably the most used trails in the Red River Gorge.
3D map of Natural Bridge State Park
March 4th, 2009Our new homepage!
March 4th, 2009I have added a new look to the homepage that incorporates real-time weather from the National Weather Service and a web cam overlooking the Great Smokies. The page also changes during the day to reflect the amount sunlight. The goal here is to inspire the city-bound hiker to get on the trail this spring.
Late winter storm in the mountains, March 2
March 4th, 2009
A classic weather scenario unfolded over the weekend. A strong low pressure system, located just southeast of the Great Smokies, moved along the eastern coast and left up to a foot of snow in the mountain summits to the east of the Smokies. The northeastern states received the highest snowfall totals from this storm though records were set in southern states.
Most of the snow that falls in the mountains, and especially at lower elevations, occurs during these type of storms. About 50% of snowfall at the highest elevations happens during a strong upslope flow, typically coming off the Great Lakes. These conditions bring heavy snow at the top while little at the bottom. Here mountains create weather by uplifting the atmosphere as it’s forced over the crest of the Smokies.
Snow depth and the darkest blues are 10″-20″ depths.
Satellite image of snow cover, from March 2
The Cold Mountain web cam had a thick layer of ice obscuring the blanket of snow left by the storm indicating a mixed bag of precipitation. The storm was accompanied by a strong high pressure located to the northwest and brought bitterly cold conditions after the low pressure moved northeast.
Cold Mountain web cam after some ice melted.
Mt. LeConte had 7 inches of snow and was -4° F Monday morning. Mountains to the east received 12″+ of snow. Most of the snow that fell in the Piedmont region of the Carolinas quickly melted under the March sun. The snow pack in the mountains is much colder and will survive longer especially in deep north-facing valleys.
March often sees big snowfalls in the mountains. Hikers in the highlands should plan for rapidly changing weather conditions with 20-30° F temperature ranges with wet, windy, and cold as company.
Look Rock web cam looking at Thunderhead Mt. with an obvious snow fall at higher elevations.
Purchase Knob web cam looking northeast over the mountains.Current weather at: http://www.outrageGIS.com/weather/grsm
New outrageGIS Weather Station Features
February 24th, 2009
Warm weather is approaching and I thought it would be great to have more web cams and animations to watch the unfurling of Spring and severe weather.
The animation to the left is the visible light spectrum from the GOES satellite and shows a cold front passing over Kentucky this past Saturday. I have assembled a few scripts to output a daily animation from dawn until dusk at four frames per hour.
Each frame is 640 pixels square, so each daily animation is about 8-16 megabytes, depending on the length of daylight. I’m working on automating the output to a .flv movie which would be easier on bandwidth. View a large-version snippet of this of this animation here. As I get the file sizes smaller, these animations will be incorporated into the weather page.
What I find most exciting about these animations is that they are photographs. We know weather and clouds from ground level of course, but to see a corollary from space I think helps a photographer understand the movement of clouds and how they filter sunlight. Though it’d be hard to use these animations to predict future light conditions beyond a few hours, they are helpful in understanding how the atmosphere moves and, in retrospect, what cloud cover is associated with which weather conditions.
How about a full day of photographs?
The animation to the right is a full-day digest from Sunday. It shows the snow cover and lake effect snow machine impacting the Appalachians. The full animation is 9 megabytes and can be view here. Note the clearly defined line of cloud cover and snow over the mountains that straddle the TN-NC state line. To the east you can see Mt. Mitchell and its orographic uplift.
Two New Web Cams
Our current NPS web cams Look Rock and Purchase Knob both look east. I incorporated two forest service web cams, Joyce Kilmer and Cold Mountain, which both look west. Though they are not in the park, they are useful in getting a panoramic real-time view of the Great Smokies. All of these web cams can be found on our Great Smokies weather page: http://www.outrageGIS.com/weather/grsm.
Big South Fork Trails
February 24th, 2009The trails in the Big South Fork are were not impacted by the ice storm that hit the northern portions of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Hikers have reported excellent trail conditions, though fording Rock Creek or the Big South might be a little cold and water levels high this time of year.