If you have spent any time in Western North Carolina, you’ll know that the weather can vary wildly from hill to holler. The topography of the region means it can be raining on one side of the mountain and sunny on the other.
The inability of local media to track these differences drove Preston Jacobsen to found Local Yokel Weather in 2007. He started by placing weather stations in areas across the region that weren’t usually represented in a traditional forecast.
“It was out of necessity and that no one was forecasting for the smaller climates within Jackson County and surrounding areas,” Jacobsen said.
He then tracked the forecast with eight weather stations from Franklin and Cullowhee to Pinnacle Peak and Mt. Lyn Lowry.
Jacobsen, who studied environmental science and hydrology at Western Carolina University, operated Local Yokel as a small business from 2010 to 2021.
In 2021, he became executive director of Haywood Waterways, a nonprofit association dedicated to maintaining and improving the water quality of the Pigeon River, but he continued Local Yokel as a passion project. In 2022, he pared down his forecasts from daily to weekly.
Last year, Jacobsen founded the site Parkway Colors with the same inspiration to forecast for underrepresented areas but with a focus on the fall foliage.
“We are already on the mountains. We’re already on the parkway observing the color change and we saw that nobody was reporting this in a very concise, packaged way,” he said. “Here’s the color, that’s where it is.”
The website is dedicated to tracking and documenting the color change along the Blue Ridge Parkway from mid-September to early November. Jacobsen covers the "Southern Section" of the Parkway from Asheville to the Qualla Boundary.
Parkway Colors also supports Explore Fall, a national foliage model created by UNC Asheville grad Evan Fisher. Jacobsen works with Fisher to make sure the model reflects what is actually happening on the trees across the region.
“The science is still new, so we provide the ground truth to their very interactive and accurate forecast model,” Jacobsen said.
Jacobsen drove around the Waterrock Knob and Graveyard Fields region at about 5,500 ft elevation this week, and he said colors have been peaking in pockets in that elevation.
“We expect peak color to come in this week at 6,000 ft so think Graveyard Fields, Richland Balsam Overlook, Caney Fork overlook those areas,” he said.
Richland Balsam Overlook is the highest point on the parkway at 6053 feet. It is located at mile post 431.4 on the parkway.
He also predicted high to peak color at Caney Fork Overlook, Cowee Mountains Overlook, Haywood-Jackson Overlooker the weekend.
