I live about 45 minutes from the park's headquarter and the time can vary base on how many tourists are clogging the road. The local news station in Knoxville only reports weather for my town, Knoxville, and surrounding communities. It doesn't show mountain weathers. Leading up to a trip to the Smokies, I use a different weather source for mountain weather. I follow the GSMNP's twitter information account. They will tweet important things such as trail closure, site closure, wrecks, etc. I first noticed the winter advisory from their tweet on a Sunday. I can imagine he didn't know the snow wasn't coming until it did. Otherwise, he could have got off the AT by Low Gap or Cosby Knob and descend to Cosby or Big Creek campground. Instead he climbed the 2nd highest mountain in the park and got trapped. At least he survived and I'm really curious to know what he had on hand and how he got through the night.