Vermonters are familiar with the "Jay Peak Cloud". It often sits over Jay Peak for days dumping snow when nearby areas are getting just flurries or nothing. The same thing happens in the Potomac Highlands of WV where the river of the same name originates. Yesterday I skied powder at Whitegrass http://www.whitegrass.com/report.html leaving at 3:30 PM and regretting that I couldn't stay overnight to ski again today. It was snowing sideways - hard and getting more intense by the minute. If one didn't know the area they'd be convinced that the drive home would be hellish. Not so. By the time I got to Harman WV, about 10 miles away as the crow flies and 1500 ft. lower, the ground was bare and there were just a few flurries. It is raging up there right now, http://www.fsvisimages.com/doso1/doso1 or http://www.dcski.com/ubbthreads33/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=47679#Post47679 (scroll down for image). This happens all the time in the area. Just like Jay Peak, it creates it's own microclimate. There is approximately 4000 feet of vertical relief between the flatlands of Ohio and the Allegheny Front, the highest range of the Appalachians in the mid Atlantic states. In northern WV, just south of the arrowhead of western MD, big wind events like that going on at present can carry moisture from the Great Lakes all the way to the Potomac Highlands where there are folks who know how to use snow. It's a good thing. Just made a snap decision. I'm going to ski there again tomorrow.