Want to be the first to see weather news? Sign up for our weekly email weather newsletter, featuring weather journalist Kevin Myatt.
“More weather” than last winter has been delivered in this El Niño-influenced season.
January has brought soaking rain, thunderstorms, tornado warnings, ice, gusty winds and Arctic chill to our region, with some balmy warmth to come in the next few days along with periods of rain.
For most, it has also delivered that most frustratingly or blessedly elusive feature of the prior winter, snow.
More snowfall than last winter’s pitiful effort has been easily accomplished in about two-thirds of the region Cardinal News covers — the part in front of the body and below the beak in the Cardinal News logo — but snow has mostly avoided the southern tier of counties east of the Blue Ridge. (See the listing comparing 2023-24 snowfall to date with 2022-23 total snowfall at the end of this column.)
Enough snow to fulfill many seasonal forecasts, including my own, that leaned to slightly above normal seasonal amounts remains on the “to do” list, if this winter gets around to it for our region, even as we head into a mostly mild-to-warm spell that likely lasts the remainder of January (minus a couple of seasonably cold days next week) and possibly past when the furry rodent makes his call on the rest of winter Feb. 2.
Here, today, we won’t make a definitive call on the rest of winter, but provide four general scenarios with my estimate of percentage chances (adding up to 100%) that each one or something similar to it happens.
We performed a similar exercise in this space last January. A 10% chance — mostly mild to warm temperatures with little or no snow — proved to be the winning lottery ticket in the 2022-23 winter.
Let’s dive in.
10% chance: That’s pretty much it for winter.
With the patterns that delivered about 10 days of legitimately deep-winter cold weather to our region having abated and no clear sign yet of an obvious Arctic resurgence for at least the next 10 days, there is simply no guarantee that a full-on winterlike period will ever return in the 2023-24 winter.
This scenario doesn’t mean that we won’t get cold at all again or that we won’t flirt with snow and/or ice another time or two — even last winter managed to do that a couple times in February and March. But in terms of below normal temperatures lasting more than two or three days at a time or atmospheric setups that could produce a sizable winter storm, it’s not absolutely etched in stone that those conditions will develop again in the 2023-24 winter. It is possible that a fast jet stream flow out of the Pacific Ocean and/or a strong high off the Southeast coast swatting cold-air masses away will rule our weather most of February and March.
There are enough signals of possible high-latitude high-pressure blocking developing in weeks ahead to return colder air southward, the historic trends of El Niño winters and hints in overall seasonal climatology to suggest that entering an early spring before Groundhog Day and more or less remaining there is unlikely. But never say never.
35% chance: Hard winter period yet to come.
It’s really hard to see what’s coming over the hill in the large-scale atmospheric pattern, but long-range computer modeling suggests that having strong northern-latitude blocking high pressure develop to press consistent cold air south again with a strong subtropical jet stream delivering moisture for multiple winter storms over a couple or three weeks is still very much on the table as more than just a remote possibility for February into the first half of March.
Here, we’ll give this about a 1 in 3 chance of transpiring. Similar scenarios have happened in the recent past, such as the last two weeks of February 2015 that delivered three winter storms and some of the coldest regional temperatures thus far in the 21st century, or March 2018 that produced three widespread significant snowfalls after lower to mid 80s highs in late February.
It is important to note here that “winter storm” encompasses ice and snow, so a damaging ice storm is also a possibility that most snow lovers and winter haters alike do not want to consider, but might fit with patterns that can lift warmth and moisture over cold air at the surface. We’ve already had one scrape with ice that got a little too close to “ice storm” for comfort in some Blue Ridge counties on Jan. 6.
45% chance: Average to somewhat mild temperatures overall but a couple of winter storms.
This is my favored scenario — almost a coin flip chance — and what fits in with the overall seasonal forecast that, except for snowfall amounts thus far, has pretty much followed the expected course to date.
This idea favors colder air returning southward but not becoming fully entrenched over our region, but often being available in short windows as storm systems traverse the southern half of the United States. Perhaps two or three times, the cold air and the moist storms would link up for a significant winter storm — 3 or more inches of snow and/or ¼ inch ice accretion covering at least 50% of Cardinal News coverage area.
Some of these may be the kind of setups where temperatures are in the 50s one day and in the 20s and 30s the next with snow or wintry mix. The latter half of February and much of March have numerous examples of these kind of quick-temperature-flip winter storms for our region.
It is certainly possible that at least one larger storm, with widespread 6+ or 12+ snowfall amounts, could lurk among these. Which brings us to one final scenario to consider.
10% chance: Just one big winter storm.
If milder weather generally prevails the rest of the winter with a few brief cold intrusions, and the volatile, wet pattern we’ve seen so far in December and January continues, there is the risk that, just one time, it could all line up for a memorably large winter storm for our region, with not much other wintry stuff of note happening.
“Big” winter storm here is defined as 6 or more inches over at least half of the Cardinal News coverage area, so this is not necessarily saying there is a 1 in 10 chance of a 1993-style blizzard. But the areawide or most-of-the-region foot-plus wallop is a possibility within this, and historically a somewhat heightened one during an El Niño winter.
Just get one of the tightly wound windy wet storms like those that traversed the central U.S. in early- to mid-January to take a track from the Gulf of Mexico up the East Coast with sufficient cold air to tap, and the 2023-24 winter could yet have something historic for our region.
Snowfall to date vs. last winter
Below is a listing of many locations in and near Cardinal News coverage area of Southwest and Southside Virginia, in alphabetical order, with the first number representing snowfall in inches through Jan. 22 this winter, compared to the entire season total for the 2022-23 winter (really fall through spring).
Except for a few sites in the southern tier of counties from Stuart to Clarksville, snowfall is already above meager 2022-23 season totals, in some cases several times so (10 times as much at Roanoke, for instance). Other than those southern rim areas that missed the Jan. 15 snowfall, only Clintwood in the Southwest corner is still trailing its 2022-23 season total — and with 7.1 inches it won’t take much to pass last winter’s 9 inches.
Abingdon: 8.5, 1.5
Appomattox; 1.3, 0.5
Bedford: 2.5, trace
Blacksburg: 3.5, 1.3
Bluefield, W.Va. 17.2, 9.3
Buena Vista: 3.2, 0.1
Burke’s Garden: 12.3, 10.2
Chatham: trace, 0.2
Christiansburg: 3.4, 0.6
Clarksville: 0, trace
Clintwood: 7.1, 9.0
Copper Hill: 7.7, 0.8
Covington: 3.3, 0.3
Danville: trace, 0.5
Farmville: 1.0, 0.4
Galax: 2.8, 1.6
Grundy: 8.9, 3.7
Hot Springs: 9.0, 0.2
Lexington: 4.0, 0.3
Lynchburg: 2.7, 0.5
Martinsville: 0, 0.1
New Castle: 3.4, 0.3
Pennington Gap: 5.6, 0.6
Pulaski: 3.3, 0.1
Radford: 1.4, 1.0
Richlands: 11.6, 0.9
Roanoke: 4.1, 0.4
Rocky Mount: 2.0, 1.0
Saltville: 7.0, 0.3
South Boston: 0, trace
Stuart: trace, 0.1
Tri-Cities, Tenn.: 3.1, 0.6
Woolwine: 3.0, trace
Wytheville: 1.9, 0.8
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.
