Cloud Cover Map

Live, interactive forecast map centered on Spruce Knob — click the Windy logo at top center to open the full site, where you can switch between several different weather models.

Why It’s Tricky to Predict

The weather right on the mountain often differs from the surrounding area — a microclimate effect. Sometimes bad weather sits below us; sometimes it forms right overhead. Conditions can shift quickly, for better or worse.

SKMC is partly shielded from mountain winds by ridges to the west and east (Back Ridge and the extended south ridge of Spruce Mountain), which can also let fog linger in the shallow valley. Altitude brings another effect: rapid cooling in the evening, since there’s less water vapor above us to hold the day’s heat.

I like to use this site for SKMC weather: wunderground.com/weather/us/wv/circleville/KWVCIRCL4. It shows real-time data from the weather station NOVAC installed on the SKMC grounds, and the forecast built from it is reasonably accurate much of the time — it nailed the predictions for both Saturday and Sunday nights recently. The further out you go, the less accurate it gets, since it’s hard to account for a butterfly flapping in China that far ahead.

I can, however, predict with confidence that our weather this week will be exactly like the weather at AHSP next month … unpredictable.

Bob Traube, NOVAC’s past coordinator for SKMC observing