Last Updated on October 21, 2016 6:10 pm
As temperatures took a sharp turn downward on Friday afternoon in the High Country, Mount Mitchell in Yancey County recorded the first snow of late 2016.
The Facebook page RomanticAsheville.com Travel Guide posted a video late Friday afternoon of the wintery conditons. The website NCHighPeaks.org had recorded a high temperature of 50 degrees at 4:11am but had dropped to 31 at 5:30pm with continued gusty winds.
Locally, “looks like some snow mixing in with the rain in Todd” was an incoming report just before 6pm. Earlier in the week the National Weather Service had said that snowflakes would be possible in the higher elevations of the High Country, but nothing of any significance was expected.
The earliest North Carolina measurable snow on record occurred on October 1, 2011 when a half an inch was recorded on Beech Mountain. The previous earliest date was October 5, 1980 with four inches on Mount Mitchell.
