Breakthrough snow for many in Southwest and Southside Virginia

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It was the first snowfall of an inch or more in two years, or nearly so, for Blacksburg, Lexington, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Wytheville and many other locations in Cardinal News country. But some places like Danville and Martinsville are still waiting.

Snowfall made enough of a return to Southwest and Southside Virginia on Monday — easily its most widespread and significant appearance since a Jan. 16, 2022, storm dumped 3-8 inches nearly areawide — to show winter hasn’t abandoned our region for good, a notion underscored further by brutally cold temperatures and wind chills on Wednesday morning and likely to repeat over the weekend.

We’ll get back to Monday’s storm and its statistical significance, but first, a quick look at current and near-future weather.

We are in the middle of a pattern of Arctic air displaced southward across much of the U.S. Wednesday morning’s lows were in the single-digits to lower teens across Southwest and Southside Virginia, with below-zero readings at Mountain Lake (-4) and Burke’s Garden (-3).

Overnight Thursday into early Friday, another system capable of producing wintry precipitation will approach the region from the west. At this writing on Wednesday, it appears that, once again, Southwest Virginia areas west of Interstate 77 will have the best chance for seeing additional snow.

The rest of our region is in considerable question, as the system may continue to carry snow or wintry mix eastward, or it may “jump” the region by re-forming off the coast and leaving little to no precipitation in much of our region.

Some of this may become more clear by Thursday, so monitor weather forecasts from the National Weather Service or on your favorite media. Any amount of snow or wintry mix, especially coming after a week of very cold temperatures, would likely stick to roads and affect Friday morning travel.

More extremely cold temperatures are expected this weekend before moderation next week. We’ll leave what happens beyond that — and particularly whether real winter makes a return — to ponder next week.

The Abingdon area of Washington County reported 5-8 inches of snow on Monday, causing some power outages and snarling travel while also painting lovely winter scenes like this one. Courtesy of Mike Mason.

Monday’s winter storm

Two or three days before Monday’s winter storm, it appeared it would simply be a spray of moisture into Arctic air, with significant snow in the Southwest corner of the state and widespread but light snow eastward across most or all of the rest of Southwest and Southside Virginia. But as time approached for the system to move in, the specifics got more complex.

Computer forecast models often get a bad rap, but that often comes from them being taken too literally and used outside their core purposes.

Forecast models are not intended to be automatons that spit out a deterministic weather forecast that is treated as gospel. They are intended to help forecasters consider how the atmosphere may react to various scenarios by frequently producing new runs with slight tweaks and new data. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses, and an experienced weather analyst will consider all that along with regional weather history, geographic quirks and overall synoptic knowledge of atmospheric science.

Your phone app jumps wildly between weather forecasts three or more days out because it is tied to a computer forecast model that flips between different scenarios.

Heading into Monday’s event, it was very much like different computer models each had a hand on the elephant in the dark room but none could see entirely what kind of animal they were dealing with.

Snow was no reason to keep from going fishing for Chad Gilmore of Moneta, who captured the snowy shorelines and falling flakes form his boat on Smith Mountain Lake. Courtesy of Chad Gilmore. — Snow was no reason to keep from going fishing for Chad Gilmore of Moneta, who captured the snowy shorelines and falling flakes from his boat on Smith Mountain Lake. Courtesy of Chad Gilmore.

To briefly summarize, moving into Sunday evening after it seemed like a fairly widespread light to moderate snow was a pretty settled issue for most of our region, a couple of shorter-term forecast models began displaying a sudden push of warm air north from North Carolina that would rather quickly change snow to wintry mix and then rain. However, a couple of mid-range models were still showing snow regionwide while also placing a zone of heavier snow southwest to northeast just east of the Blue Ridge.

Both ideas seemed flawed overall, but in the end, each came to pass in slightly different ways than had been depicted. A surge of slightly milder air did lift its way northward over much of Southside, changing snow to wintry mix and rain (or even lifting the vast majority of precipitation to the north, leaving places like Danville largely dry).

Snow took a while to start sticking well, as seen in its early stages of accumulation at downtown Roanoke's Highland Park, but eventually collected to about 4 inches in much of the Roanoke Valley. Courtesy of Hope Noland. — Snow took a while to start sticking well, as seen in its early stages of accumulation at downtown Roanoke’s Highland Park, but eventually collected to about 4 inches in much of the Roanoke Valley. Courtesy of Hope Noland.

But the warm air advection was not nearly as aggressive as the short-term models had shown it would be, and the boundary helped focus lift and moisture convergence in a narrow southwest-to-northeast zone similar to where the longer-term models had shown it would be. This eventually drifted west to pretty much right over the Blue Ridge, focusing rounds of heavy snow on some higher elevation sections of Carroll and western Patrick and Franklin counties through Floyd County and into the Roanoke Valley, with 4 to 6 inches in many locations originally projected by most forecasts to get 1 to 3 inches. This band got stuck pretty much in the same place for about 6 hours.

So it’s not too much of a stretch to say that the reason places like Stuart and Martinsville and Danville and southern Franklin County and much of Campbell County south of Lynchburg got little or no snow, but rather sleet and rain or not much precipitation, is the same reason places like Floyd and Boones Mill and most of the Roanoke Valley got more snow than expected.

The storm was pretty much what was expected in Southwest Virginia west of Interstate 77, with 4-8 inches common and at least one report topping 12 at Lebanon by Friday morning. The New River Valley had a lull in significant snowfall during much of Monday after morning accumulation, but steadier snow resumed by early evening with many 2- to 4-inch amounts and a few locally heavier ones.

Snow totals as turned into the National Weather Service office at Blacksburg. Courtesy of the National Weather Service.

The top portion of this map shows snow totals in Southwest Virginia counties under the auspices of the National Weather Service office at Morristown, Tennessee. Parts of central and eastern Tennessee had even deeper snow. Courtesy of the National Weather Service.

Snowfall contest, statistics update

The maps within this article help describe regional snowfall for Monday’s winter storm.

Below, I am using the 12 sites chosen for the 2023-24 Cardinal Weather snowfall contest, both to update people who entered the contest and to give a regional sampler of Monday’s snowfall, season snowfall to date, and the statistical significance of the recent snowfall. Listed in boldface up front is the first 1-inch snowfall date for each site, a critical part of the contest for each entrant, who chose a single site to guess this date for.

One issue I’ve run into with the snowfall contest is that the volunteer co-op sites in this list run on a 7 a.m. to 7 a.m. reporting cycle while the major climate stations use a midnight to midnight reporting cycle. So precipitation reported for Jan. 16 at 7 a.m. largely reflect what happened the day before plus the first seven hours of the date listed. Because of that quirk with the co-op stations, I will count both dates as the “first snowfall date” for the purposes of the snowfall contest, using whichever is closest to entrants’ guesses to judge the scores. (Marked by asterisk.)

Abingdon:  First 1-inch snowfall date is Dec. 18/19.* 5 inches on Monday was the largest snowfall since 12 inches on Dec. 9-10, 2018. Season total through Jan. 16: 7.0 inches
Appomattox: No first 1-inch snowfall date yet. 0.8 inch of snow/sleet mix fell on Monday. Season total through Jan. 16: 1.3 inches
Blacksburg: First 1-inch snowfall date is Jan. 15. 2.7 inches on Monday was the first 1-inch or greater snowfall since March 12, 2022. Season total through Jan. 16: 3.3 inches.
Bluefield, W.Va.: First 1-inch snowfall date is Dec. 18. 4.4 inches on Monday was the largest snowfall since 7.4 inches on Jan. 16-17, 2022. Season total through Jan. 16: 11.9 inches.
Danville: No first 1-inch snowfall date yet. Season total through Jan. 16: Trace
Lexington: First 1-inch snowfall date is Jan. 15/16*. 3.7 inches on Monday was the first 1-inch or greater snowfall since March 12/13, 2022.  Season total through Jan. 16: 3.7 inches.
Lynchburg:  First 1-inch snowfall date is Jan. 15. 2.7 inches on Monday was the first 1-inch or greater snowfall since Jan. 16, 2022. Season total through Jan. 16: 2.7 inches.
Martinsville: No first 1-inch snowfall date yet. Season total through Jan. 16: Zero
Roanoke: First 1-inch snowfall date is Jan. 15. 3.8 inches on Monday was the first 1-inch or greater snowfall since 1.1 inches on Jan. 29-30, 2022, and first 1-inch or greater snowfall for a calendar date since Jan. 16, 2022. Season total through Jan. 16: 4.0 inches.
Tri-Cities Airport, Tenn.: First 1-inch snowfall date is Jan. 15. 2.3 inches on Monday was first 1-inch or greater snowfall since March 12, 2022. Season total through Jan. 16: 2.6 inches.
Wise: First 1-inch snowfall date is Dec. 18/19.* No report in database yet for Monday or any date past Jan. 4, when season total was 1.9 inches. These are often delayed.
Wytheville:  First 1-inch snowfall date is Jan. 15/16.* 1.8 inches on Monday was first 1-inch snowfall on record since Jan. 3-4, 2022, though there is missing data for Jan. 16, 2022, when the last likely 1 inch or greater snow occurred. Season total through Jan. 16: 1.8 inches.

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.