My wife and I were just a couple of months into our "big year" - a year off to see as many different species of birds as possible; visit national parks; and backpack every trail that caught our fancy - we had been tracing along the Gulf Coast from Florida to Louisiana and were on our way into Texas when the temperature started dropping precipitously and the wind picked up steadily until by the time we got to Sea Rim state park, it was ripping by at gale force - we tried valiantly to set up our ancient VE24 on the beach but finally gave it up as a fools errand . Drove into High Island and got one of the very few motel rooms we stayed in all year (we were doing the entire year on about 8,500 dollars). We called my brother who was house sitting for us at our place on Wesser Creek (just a couple miles from NOC) and he told us bout the snow in NC - they eventually got a little over three feet and were snow bound for ten days w/o electricity or much in the way of food - fortunately there's a small country store close by and they could melt snow on the wood stove for cooking and toilet flushing. Heard about the Cranbrook kids in the Smokies while listening to NPR - epic.