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Rocky Mount Woman Wins Winter Weather Contest

Karen Salacki of Rocky Mount, NC has been named the winner of the Grandfather Mountain Winter Weather Contest. With her uncanny intuition for Grandfather’s coldest season, Salacki beat out 151 other contestants who submitted their forecasts online.

While many people got one or two questions right, Salacki took the prize with three correct answers.

Her response to a question asking what would be the coldest temperature of the winter was exact with the answer of minus 7 degrees.

She also hit the nail on the head when she guessed which month would bring the most snowfall to Grandfather. The month of February was the winner with 39.1 inches of snow recorded.

The contest this year was especially hard to judge since the winter was so rough that employees could not get to the top of the Mountain to record measurements every day.

"We have some large gaps in our weather records over the past few months from when conditions were just too brutal even to reach the weather station," said Grandfather Mountain News Director Landis Wofford. "It was hard for me to come up with accurate answers for all of the questions that we asked back in October."

Between November 15, 2009 and April 15, 2010, Grandfather Mountain recorded a total of 94.5 inches of snow, but the actual amount was probably two to five feet more than what was recorded. Grandfather recorded temperatures zero degrees or below three times, but once again the actual number of sub-zero days was probably greater. The coldest temperature recorded was minus 7 degrees on January 9 and the highest three-second wind guest recorded was 96 mph on December 29.

Salacki said her win could be credited partly to "guestimation" as she used the data provided from past years to tabulate her answers. She also used the 2009 autumn weather as a indication of what the winter would be like.

Salacki, who works in the mental health field, said she gets up to the mountains of North Carolina once a year and that Grandfather is often part of that journey.

“I really enjoy visiting Grandfather in the fall,” said Salacki. "I love that the season offers the best of both worlds; there's lots of events and activities to take part in, but it's also easy to take a moment and have some quiet reflection."

As winner of the Winter Weather Contest, Salacki will be presented with a prize package consisting of a day pass for six to visit Grandfather and a free lunch at Mildred’s Grill.

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