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If you had fire and smoke on your bingo card for being among the impactful weather events of 2023 in Southwest and Southside Virginia, you would be at least as deserving of a prize as the winner of last winter’s almost-snowless snowfall prediction contest.
2023 was generally a year of “not much” for Southwest and Southside Virginia regional weather. Not much snow. Not much rain (except a few cases like those in this list with briefly and locally way too much rain), leading to drought and wildfires. Not much summer heat, at least compared to headlines about heat waves in other parts of the nation and world in this warmest year of global average temperature on record. Not much in the way of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. And not much impact from tropical systems.
· Forecast update: Christmas Eve featured mild temperatures topping 60 degrees at many locations, but a colder (though not extremely cold) pattern appears to be setting up entering 2024, with a more southerly track of the jet stream. As early as Friday, there may be some potential for snow at least in our region’s more mountainous counties, and additional storm systems that will have at least some chance of producing wintry precipitation are possible in the first 10 days of 2024.
This year — thankfully — did not produce any exceptionally high-impact weather events that wrought death, destruction or intense disruption across a widespread part of the region covered by Cardinal News, or even an exceptionally destructive localized event akin to the violent Buchanan and Tazewell County flash flooding that led the 2022 list, as even the wildfires and floods did not affect many homes. There was not much that would qualify as an obvious choice for a top weather happening in 2023 from Cumberland Gap to Cumberland County and Interstate 64 to the North Carolina state line, Cardinal News’ general region of coverage.
Any top 10 list is subjective. This list is based on my best estimate of impact, historical uniqueness and newsworthiness of each weather story — I say “story” rather than “event” because some are tied to multiple events or extended periods of time. Also note the italicized “Current status” segments to update these items on where they stand now and where we may be going with similar weather stories entering the new year.
1. Autumn drought and wildfires.
Most of Southwest and Southside Virginia remained outside the drought that overtook much of the Shenandoah Valley in the summer. But by fall, weeks of minimal rain eventually spread moderate to severe drought over much of our region, too.
One consequence of that was a series of wildfires, culminating in the 11,000-plus acre Matts Creek fire in northern Bedford County. That fire, largely within the James River Face Wilderness Area of the Jefferson National Forest, resulted in a 10-mile section of the Appalachian Trail and the 20-mile section of the Blue Ridge Parkway being closed for several days. Downwind from the fire, schools in Amherst, Bedford and Rockbridge counties closed as thick smoke posed respiratory danger. A 3.5-inch rainfall on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving finally helped crews contain the blaze and reopen closed trails and roads. No homes were damaged and even a shelter and privy along the Appalachian Trail were spared.
Other wildfires of more than 1,000 acres affected Patrick, Buchanan, Lee and Dickenson counties and another of about 500 acres in Pulaski and Giles counties. A larger wildfire just north of our region, the Quaker Run Fire in Madison County, burned nearly 4,000 acres in Madison County, nudging into Shenandoah National Park.
Current status: Though moderate to severe drought continues in much of the western two-thirds of Virginia, rainfall has become more frequent and heavier in December as it appears the wetter winter pattern typical of El Niño — the warming of a stripe of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures — has begun setting in. The region experienced its third widespread rainfall of the month with many locations above an inch on Tuesday. Prospects appear strong for additional precipitation headed into January. The drought may not last to spring if most past El Niño winters are an indication.
2. (Almost) snowless winter.
The question that carried us through last winter was “Is it ever going to snow?” Except for some narrow strips mostly in Southwest Virginia west of Interstate 77, and some in the New River Valley and eastern parts of Southside on Feb. 2, the answer through January and February was, for most spots in Southwest and Southside Virginia, a resounding “no” as a stable mild pattern influenced by a strong ridge of high pressure off the Southeast U.S. Coast dominated the weather pattern, deflecting away cold air masses and would-be winter storms. March 12 finally brought the closest thing to a widespread snowfall to nearly the entire region east of Interstate 77, but amounts were almost all less than an inch.
It was the least snowy winter on record going back more than a century at Blacksburg (1.3 inches) and Lexington (0.3 inch), the second least-snowy at Lynchburg (0.6 inch, trailed only by trace snow in 2019-20) and third least-snowy at Roanoke (0.4 inch, trailed only by the back-to-back no-accumulation winters of 1918-19 and 1919-20). It was also among the mildest few winters on record at several locations, held back from being the warmest largely by the extreme Arctic outbreak just before Christmas 2022. Roanoke’s first winter month with a 50-degree average in February plays a significant mathematical role in the 10th-rated item in this list.
Current status: The 2023-24 winter has produced a few minor snows in the western mountain counties and at least one spotty light snow eastward into Central and Southside Virginia, but December has been warmer than normal with no widespread regional winter storm as of yet. The atmospheric pattern, however, appears to be changing over the next few days to allow storm systems to take a more southerly track as colder air filters in from Canada. A deeper shot of cold may be possible later in January or in February as the polar vortex splits or elongates southward, but for now, storm systems moving through in early January may at least have more wintry precipitation implications than we’ve seen in most of December. In any event, a repeat of 2022-23 snowlessness appears to be extremely unlikely given weather patterns ahead, though there is no guarantee, as of yet, that this will be an especially snowy or even normally snowy winter.
3. Canadian wildfire smoke.
Months before the region had its own homegrown wildfire smoke, Virginia and much of the eastern U.S. imported it from Canada. Widespread and intense wildfires in northern Canada supplied the smoke, and a cooler-than-normal weather pattern in June with northwest flow out of Canada brought the smoke southward in alarmingly great quantities, particularly around June 6 and again around June 29, with lesser wafts before, after and in between those dates. The smoke sharply reduced visibilities and caused breathing difficulties. On June 29, the air quality index at a sensor in Vinton, just outside Roanoke, measured over 160, the worst air quality in over 15 years and in a range that is considered hazardous breathing even for people with healthy lungs. Lessening of the Canadian fires and more infrequent northwest flow patterns reduced the concentrations of smoke during latter summer and early fall.
Current status: This rampant fire season has ended but much of Canada has experienced warmer and drier than normal weather, with little snowpack, to start the 2023-24 winter. Only time will tell if that snowpack rebuilds and cooler, wetter weather can settle in to ward off a repeat of the 2023 fire season. Smoke reaching our region from Canada is entirely a function of atmospheric wind patterns that can’t be predicted until less than a week from occurrence.
4. Lynchburg-area deluge, July 13-16.
The next three items on this list involve noteworthy torrential downpours that defied the drier tendencies of the year as a whole. How they rank is debatable, and these summaries make the case for any of the three to be ranked higher than the other two, but the nod here for overall impacts over a larger area is to the July 13-16 series of downpours focused on Lynchburg and surrounding parts of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford and Campbell counties. Slow-moving, intense thunderstorms developed over the same area on repeated days. The 7 to 12 inches of rain, including 4+ inches in the evening of July 15, led to closed highways, swift-water rescues, and some water entering homes and businesses. Lynchburg had a record wet July primarily driven by these four days, totaling 10.39 inches of rain.
Current status: Unlike most locations in our region, Lynchburg, largely on the strength of those four days in July, is slightly above normal in rainfall going into the last week of 2023.
5. Lane Stadium deluge, Sept. 9.
In terms of most people affected at once, and national notoriety, the Sept. 9 localized downpour that delayed Virginia Tech’s home football game with Purdue for 5½ hours and sent 65,000 fans scurrying for cover — many fleeing the stadium into lightning and flooding — was likely our region’s most infamous weather event of 2023. Hail damaged the giant scoreboard as a narrow line of intense thunderstorms formed right over the stadium and tracked over the same location for about three hours. Blacksburg’s official rain gauge at the National Weather Service office recorded 4.42 inches of rain, the third-largest one-day rain total on record going back to 1893. Thankfully, there apparently were no deaths or injuries and no lasting or extreme high-water issues, which along with the extremely localized nature of this event (less than 5-mile radius of extreme rainfall) led to a slightly lesser ranking here than the Lynchburg-area multi-day deluge.
Updated 8:30 p.m. Current status: Virginia Tech lost that storm-delayed game 24-17 to Purdue but went 7-6 for the season after defeating Tulane 41-20 in the Military Bowl — perhaps appropriately in a driving rain — on this Wednesday, December 27.
6. Patrick County deluge, Aug. 27.
By sheer numbers, the worst downpours of 2023 in our region focused on northern Patrick County on August 27. In a single evening, stalled thunderstorms enhanced by upslope flow against the Blue Ridge and “warm-rain” processes akin to tropical systems dumped radar-estimated amounts of over a foot, with a gauge at Woolwine measuring 10.62 inches (second section of article linked here.) Numerous roads in the region were closed and/or damaged. The effects were very localized and mostly in relatively unpopulated areas, so overall impacts appeared to be less than the previous two listed sets of downpours. But just going by most rain in the least time, this was the worst.
Current status: This was a localized downpour that appeared to have had no lasting dire consequences. Climate scientists have found more intense localized tropical-like downpours are becoming more frequent at farther north latitudes, but predicting where and when they will occur is elusive until such an event has already begun.
7. April 1 windstorm.
April Fool’s Day winds were no joke, especially along the Blue Ridge and Interstate 81 corridor, as almost 100,000 utility customers lost power behind a strong cold front. Gusts of over 50 mph were common through the afternoon and evening of April 1 with some gusts topping 60 mph. Gusty, topography-enhanced winds behind cold fronts are not uncommon in our region, but through a mild and placid winter, this was the first similar episode since the pre-Christmas Arctic outbreak in late 2022.
Current status: We have had some windy episodes in December but none that have caused as many widespread power outage problems as April 1. It is probably inevitable, though, that a passing strong low-pressure system or cold front will bring some power-crashing winds sooner or later in the first few months of 2024.
8. July 28 near-derecho.
A windy squall line moving from West Virginia across much of our region resulted in more than 50,000 utility customers losing power. The Roanoke airport clocked a wind gust of 58 mph and 50+ gusts were common along the path of the squall line with many reports of wind damage as the line developed more of a classic “bow-echo” structure east of the Blue Ridge. Whether this squall line qualified as low-end “derecho” is a close call, with marginally severe winds frequent but not continuous over about a 300-mile linear stretch (240 miles of consistent 58+ gusts are the low bar for derecho status).
Current status: We do not typically experience squall lines with potential to be derechoes until late spring, as it is difficult to get widespread instability to support them until it is warmer and more humid over a wide area consistently. The infamous 2012 derecho has receded into the past just far enough that it is not quite as much on the forefront of the minds of nearly everyone in our region as it has been in years prior, but many who remember will still fear the “d-word” anytime they see thunderstorms forming an arc somewhere to our west.
9. Southwest Virginia tornadoes/wind damage, May 16.
This was not a big year for tornadoes in our region, but on May 16, a pair of tornadoes were confirmed in Scott and Lee counties, EF-1 tornadoes with near 100-mph winds and short paths that uprooted trees, during an outbreak of severe storms. The day’s most serious damage occurred at a strip mall in Pennington Gap (Lee County), but that was determined to have been caused by straight-line winds of up to 90 mph. There were several reports of wind damage in Virginia’s southwest corner and eastward toward Southside Virginia just north of the North Carolina line.
Current status: El Niño winter-spring periods have a tendency to produce more severe storms and tornadoes farther east and earlier in the year — recall the 2016 Appomattox County and 2019 Franklin County EF-3 tornadoes — so we’ll be on the lookout for this as we move deeper in 2024.
10. Roanoke’s first 60-degree year.
Posting this weather column on Dec. 27 presumes that the last four days of the year won’t produce a Top 10 weather event. But in this case, we are mathematically projecting to a significant climatic milestone for the largest city in our region of coverage. Through Monday, Dec. 26, Roanoke’s average temperature for 2023 was 60.5 degrees. Forecast highs and lows over the final few days will not come close to sinking that average below the 60-degree mark, so, 2023 will be the warmest year on record for Roanoke and the first to average 60 degrees or more. Also on track to having a warmest year on record, among locations with at least 50 years of consistent weather records, is Abingdon, 58.9 degrees with 58.0 in 2022 as second-place. Many other locations, such as Blacksburg and Lynchburg, have had a year among the 10 warmest on record as the globe experiences what will be its warmest year on record.
Current status: While there is a clear tendency toward warmer annual average temperature following what is happening globally, we may have a pretty good idea whether 2024 in particular will contend with the year just past by spring, as warm winter months do more than hot summer months — and can actually overcome not-so-hot summer months as we saw in 2023 — to raise annual averages. Early indications are that January and February will not be as warm as they were in 2023 but could average near to slightly above normal in temperature unless there is a sharp movement of Arctic air into the region for multiple weeks.
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.
