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We’re coming down the stretch in 2023 waiting to see if a colder, wetter pattern will develop in December that could cause the year’s warm, dry run to stumble a little at the finish line.
Tuesday and Wednesday have certainly not been in step with a warm year. An Arctic cold front brought on rounds of snow showers along and west of the Blue Ridge on Tuesday, followed by a rather bitter Wednesday morning of widespread teens lows.
But, in keeping with the general thought discussed last week in this space that the 2023-24 winter is likely to have considerable variations in temperatures, we’ll be bouncing back quickly toward 60 degrees by late week, as some still much-needed periods of rain showers arrive, for Friday and again toward Sunday and Monday. Rainfall amounts do not look likely to be large, probably under 1 inch total for most of the Southwest and Southside Virginia region covered by Cardinal News, but it may be a signal of a weather pattern that is starting to spit more wet storm systems our way headed into December.
Signals are mixed on the temperature regime that will set up for December, but it looks to be variable with cold punches and mild interludes. Cold air may regain a foothold by the middle of next week, with at least some chance of a storm system developing near our region about that time.
Stay tuned. The first significant wintry precipitation threat of the season could sneak up on us with only a day or two notice as we start seeing a few more storm systems and occasional cold fronts moving into December.
How the year ends in temperature could have profound impact on the annual average that could be a record-setter for the largest city in Cardinal News territory.
60-degree year for Roanoke?
Roanoke is closing in on what could be the Star City’s first 60-degree year in 112 years of weather records. With 35 days left in the year, Roanoke’s average temperature for 2023 was 62 degrees, which is the warmest it has ever been through Nov. 26 by six-tenths of a degree over 2020.
The 62-degree average will drop in December, even if the month is warmer than normal, but it will probably take some lengthy stretches of below normal temperatures to get it to fall below 60. 2019, 2020 and 2021 all finished with 59.5-degree averages at Roanoke, only exceeded by 1931 at 59.7 degrees, which had data missing on 18 days and doesn’t appear in the National Weather Service’s record warm years for Roanoke.
Incidentally, 11 of the 20 warmest years at Roanoke have occurred since 2000, a number that jumps to 13 of 20 if you disqualify 1930 and 1931 for having 15 and 18 missing days of data, respectively.
This would certainly be a figure that seems in line with broader global climate warming as the planet as a whole moves toward its warmest year on record. But the official weather sensor at the Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, when compared to similar regional sites, also appears to also be affected by an enhanced urban heat island effect from surrounding land rapidly changing from rural and light residential to heavily commercial over the past three decades. (Developing nearby heavily wooded Evans Spring, reported on by Cardinal News, might increase this effect.)
Warm but not a record elsewhere
Other regional locations are experiencing a warm year relative to historical records, but not an extraordinary one.
At Lynchburg, it is tied for the 12th warmest through Nov. 26 at 60.5 degrees, with records that begin in 1893. Like Roanoke, Lynchburg has not previously had a year that averaged 60 degrees or more, topping out at 59.5 in 1921, with 59.4 in 2020 tied with 1984 and 1938 as a close second. With December decline in temperatures, this year will almost certainly fall below those marks.
Missing data in many years makes it difficult to get an accurate ranking for Blacksburg and Danville, but it appears to be around the 10th warmest year through Nov. 26 at Blacksburg dating back to 1893 and around the 40th warmest year through the same date at Danville dating back to 1917.
Dry year, dry fall
With 30.93 inches of rain through Nov. 26, it has been Roanoke’s driest year-to-date in 11 years and 21st driest in the past 112 years. It has been among the driest 25 percent of autumns on record at Roanoke with 5.71 inches since Sept. 1, nearly half of that falling eight days ago with 2.21 inches on Nov. 21 as the region received widespread 1-3 inches that helped control the 11,000-acre Matts Creek fire.
Some other locations have been drier this fall.
The Tri-Cities Airport in Tennessee, the official climate station for the three-city metropolitan area that includes Bristol, Virginia, appears headed for its second driest fall on record, with only 2.93 inches of rain through Nov. 26. This is more than only the 2.70 inches in autumn 1939, two years after record-keeping began for this location. Meteorological fall for weather records concludes Friday, the last day of November, when there is a chance of showers, but likely not the 0.61 inch of rain that would move it past third-place 2001 with 3.54 inches of rain.
Record autumn dryness is occurring at Wise in the southwest corner of the state, with only 3.91 inches of rain from Sept. 1 through Nov. 26, which will become the driest fall since records began there in 1955 if 0.13 does not fall on Friday to surpass the second-place 4.04 in 1980.
But other spots have gotten the downpours.
Lynchburg’s record wet July of 10.38 inches — most of it in three days — has kept the Hill City away from talk of dry year records, but with 38.37 inches, a dry December could still leave it a couple or three inches short of normal. Similarly, getting over 4 inches of rain on a September football Saturday has kept Blacksburg with a healthy 9.52 inches of rain for the fall, a half-inch above normal, and 36.38 inches for the year, which a wet December could push close to the low 40s normal.
Truly, when it does rain, it pours.
Journalist Kevin Myatt has been writing about weather for 20 years. His weekly column, appearing on Wednesdays, is sponsored by Oakey’s, a family-run, locally owned funeral home with locations throughout the Roanoke Valley.
