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Moon Cricket
11-07-2006, 00:27
What will the weather be like in early march as I wrestle with Springer Mountain and up through the Smokies. I assume that after the Smokies the weather will become a little less challenging but hot of course. :dance :dance :dance

Singe03
11-07-2006, 01:02
Every year is pretty unique and there can be pretty drastic day to day changes early and late in your hike. One day could be sunny and in the 70s, the next day could be 40 and rainy so you just have to pack the basics and be ready for most anything.

Frosty
11-07-2006, 01:26
What will the weather be like in early march as I wrestle with Springer Mountain and up through the Smokies. I assume that after the Smokies the weather will become a little less challenging but hot of course. :dance :dance :danceLate last March temps were in the teens between Hiawassee and Franklin. All my water (and my water filter) froze overnight at Carter Gap when temperature went down into the low teens. A few days before, I had to put a bandana on the back of my neck so it wouldn't get sunburned. So yeah, challenging is a good description. But it didn't rain much. Day after day of rain is the big bummer, IMO.

freefall
11-07-2006, 03:42
What will the weather be like in early march as I wrestle with Springer Mountain and up through the Smokies. I assume that after the Smokies the weather will become a little less challenging but hot of course. :dance :dance :dance

If anyone could answer this with any degree of accuracy, they would be rich! March in the south can see 70+ degree days or blizzard type conditions. Last March 5th it was in the 50s when I left Springer. Then it got up into the 60s only to plunge into the teens in the Smokies with mass quantities of snow and ice.

On the whole, this was a pretty average year on the trail, weather-wise. Lots of rain for NOBOS in PA but it wasn't a constant thing, just came down in buckets when it did rain.

Some people were sending their winter gear home from Damascus(around 4/18) and a few were uncomfortable for a few weeks. I personally didn't send my winter stuff home until Waynesboro(around June 1st) and actually got hot a few nights.

Moral of the story- be prepared for it all and you won't have a problem.

general
11-07-2006, 09:06
i encountered some sort of precipitation for 23 out of my first 25 days on the trail in 2000. keep in mind that northeast georgia has seen some of it's biggest snowstorms in march, with accumualtion of up to a foot or so, with drifts up to 2 feet or more on the backsides of the mountains. a couple of days after that you'll be working on your tan. ice is what really puts a damper on things. after a front pushes through, the wind picks up, the ice starts to melt, and then you have baseball size ice rockets flying out of the tree tops. those kind of hurt. as stated in a previous post, accurately predicting the weather would be impossible, but it's a safe bet that you will encounter a mixed bag of every type of weather that the south is capable of dishing out. i too know plenty of folks that ditched their winter gear in damascus, and then froze when the got into the highlands. i myself have encountered sleet in the highlands the week before trail days, with wind that would blow a grown man off trail. i like to see that winter stuff when i'm hiking however. it adds a bit of challenge and also keeps lots of folks in shleters or hotel rooms. i like being one of those fools that doesn't mind hiking in it.

highway
11-07-2006, 09:13
There used to be a weather site of weather along the AT where one could plug in the cities and it would graph out the max-min. I have copies of it in a few places such as Helen, Ga.; Elk Park; Damascus. It was offered on another site...thru-hiker is printed at the bottom right of the charts I copied back in 2004 when I used it. I suppose I could print these here if the original is no longer available.

Thor
11-07-2006, 11:00
i encountered some sort of precipitation for 23 out of my first 25 days on the trail in 2000. .

Just to show how impossible it is to predict, I didn't get rained on once in the state of Georgia this year. Drought conditions and all that. It was pretty hot, too. All you can do is guess what the weather will be, and prepare for the worste possible conditions. Assume there will be freezing rain every day ;)

mindi
11-07-2006, 11:37
I'm dreading heat more than cold, I can handle cold and rain much better. Of course now that I've lived in Florida for a few years I may have forgotten what real cold feels like!

Dancer
11-07-2006, 11:57
Hey Mindi!

Go SOBO! From what I have been able to tell from journals and other reading New England and North midatlantic are not that hot in June (I lived in PA through the summer of '03 and it was heaven. I'm from NC) Humidity is a big factor! By the time you hit VA/NC/GA it will be fall and cooling off nicely.

Think about it but either way, GO DO IT! Good luck in your prep and God bless!

MrHappy
11-09-2006, 09:24
Under NO circumstances do you want to be in Maine from about June 10th - 30th. It's black fly season. I went on a day hike of katahdin with my little brother last June. I had a bug net for my head. He didn't. At the end of the hike, I counted over 300 bites on him -- 40 of them on the back of his neck. He'd been sprayed regularly with 100% deet too, so don't think that is going to save you. And they didn't reside only in the low areas -- we were bit up at the summit.

So here's my question:
What are conditions (worst case scenario) going to be like in GA in January? What about TN? Will a 15 degree bag and a 3 season bivy cut it?

general
11-09-2006, 15:43
So here's my question:
What are conditions (worst case scenario) going to be like in GA in January? What about TN? Will a 15 degree bag and a 3 season bivy cut it?

i use a 0 degree and a full coverage tarp in GA that time of the year.

Dancer
11-09-2006, 16:05
Read some of the SOBO journals at Trailjournals. Blackflies are an issue but I think the general consensus is that they aren't that big of a factor.

Amazonwoman

handlebar
11-09-2006, 23:46
Read some of the SOBO journals at Trailjournals. Blackflies are an issue but I think the general consensus is that they aren't that big of a factor.

Amazonwoman

But if I'm not mistaken there was a drought in ME this year that severely limitted the black flies.

handlebar
11-09-2006, 23:54
What will the weather be like in early march as I wrestle with Springer Mountain and up through the Smokies. I assume that after the Smokies the weather will become a little less challenging but hot of course.

The weather could be anything as you leave Springer. On Mar 15 this year it was beautiful and stayed that way for about a week. On Tray Mtn we had freezing rain---think hypothermia weather. At Bly Gap just after the GA-NC border we had two days of blizzard conditions---snow, flowing wind and 15* lows. FiveWay and I hunkered down in our tents for a whole day, though I think we would have been better off hiking. In mid-May there was wet snow in Grayson Highlands (Mt. Rogers).

YMMV, but conventional wisdom is to keep cold weather gear (15* bag) until after Mt. Rogers.

Didn't have really hot weather until PA and July. Hottest day by far was in Connecticut where the thermometer hit 100*, combined with high humidity that is really hot.

In other words, you'll have all kinds of weather: snow, rain, hot, cold. It's part of the adventure.

hammock engineer
11-10-2006, 00:03
On a side note. I was talking to my roommate today about the weather in the South when I start in March. He didn't believe me when I said that I need to be ready for cold and snow in GA in March and April.

I'm hoping for warmer weather, but whatever it is I'll be out there and loving it.

Big Oz
11-10-2006, 12:04
What will the weather be like in early march as I wrestle with Springer Mountain and up through the Smokies. I assume that after the Smokies the weather will become a little less challenging but hot of course. :dance :dance :danceunder bulletins on this site has an updated weather forcast http://appalachiantrailservices.com/index.php?env=-inlink/index:m129-1-1-1-s&reset=1 for all the trail

highway
11-11-2006, 09:12
Here is another one:

http://www.trailquest.net/weather.html

Pick your location and go to month hi-lo averages, then choose the month you desire. A few years ago there was one available which charted out the temps listing hi-lo-average along an X-Y axis that was great but I just cannot find in anymore. It was there in 2003, or thereabouts, but its lost into the ether now, I guess

WhoAh
11-11-2006, 20:37
Here is another one:

http://www.trailquest.net/weather.html

Thanks - the chart a little further down on that page showing the monthly temps and precipitation is something that I was looking for.

Fly By Mike
11-12-2006, 17:00
Read some of the SOBO journals at Trailjournals. Blackflies are an issue but I think the general consensus is that they aren't that big of a factor.

Amazonwoman

How bad the black flies are depends on several factors. If you get a warmish day without any wind anytime from about the first week to last week in June, anywhere withing a hundred miles of Katahdin, you can expect to be really harrassed by them. It's enough to make you cry... seriously. And you can expect at least two out of every five days to be like that. Also depends on how much rain, time of the spring thaw, etc as to just how bad they'll be when they come out. To many folks up here only good reason to be outside in northern Maine in June is to go fishing. When the black flies are biting so are the fish. But I guess if you hike fast enough you can create your own breeze and blow them away:banana

highway
11-13-2006, 08:28
Thanks - the chart a little further down on that page showing the monthly temps and precipitation is something that I was looking for.
Keep in mind that those max-min temps were in towns-lower than parts of the trail-and, therefore, warmer

WhoAh
11-13-2006, 21:29
Keep in mind that those max-min temps were in towns-lower than parts of the trail-and, therefore, warmer


True. I heard somewhere - back in my Scouting days perhaps - that the temps varied roughly 5 degrees per 1,000 feet of altitude. But that is still just a guide, and the variance could be much more (wind, percipitation, etc.).