Warmth marching in for late February — might winter be over?

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A somewhat colder weather pattern doesn’t have the longevity or depth to trigger a full-on return to winter for Southwest and Southside Virginia in these waning days of February.

The cold mornings we’ve had this week — many locations dropped into the teens Sunday morning — and the two snow events that scraped north of our region last week are about all there is to show for the mid-February colder pattern shift that actually did happen over much of the eastern U.S., but isn’t all that impressive.

The ground was just wet in Monterey but snow covered mountains just to the west in Highland County near the West Virginia border on Tuesday, February 13. Two snow-bearing systems moved north of our region last week, leaving some snow in higher elevations along the West Virginia line and in Northern Virginia. Courtesy of Rain Hupman. — The ground was just wet in Monterey but snow-covered mountains just to the west in Highland County near the West Virginia border on Tuesday, February 13. Two snow-bearing systems moved north of our region last week, leaving some snow in higher elevations along the West Virginia line and in Northern Virginia. Courtesy of Rain Hupman.

A fast jet stream flow across the nation from the Pacific Ocean that has been frequent in recent winters and has continued much of this winter has helped knock the moorings off the foundation of a potentially longer cold-tilting active pattern. High pressure over western North America that could have been the pile-driver for shoving cold air southward will quickly shift to a broad area of low-pressure instead, providing much milder southwest wind flow over much of the central and eastern U.S. Likewise, northern-latitude high pressure blocking to force cold air and the storm track much farther south has proven insufficient as well.

Instead, after another quick shot of cold air this weekend that might spray a few mountain snow showers by Saturday after some late week rain, we’re headed for a decided warmup in February’s latter days, likely reaching 60 or higher on multiple days next week. Thunderstorms may even enter the picture — severe thunderstorms and tornadoes seem probable to become an issue in states to our west and southwest as we approach the quadrennial Leap Day on Feb. 29.

The Climate Prediction Center's 6- to 10-day temperature forecast map shows high likelihood of above-normal temperatures over much of the East including Virginia as February closes and March begins. Courtesy of Climate Prediction Center, NOAA. — The Climate Prediction Center’s 6- to 10-day temperature forecast map shows high likelihood of above-normal temperatures over much of the East including Virginia as February closes and March begins. Courtesy of Climate Prediction Center, NOAA.

So those metaphorical batters for Team Snow we talked about a couple weeks ago are going to go down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning. That leaves regional snow fans with just the ninth inning, which is March, and a much weaker part of the lineup facing some ace pitchers from Team Spring to bat against. Sometimes even a milder winter delivers bloop singles or a freak home run in March, so we’ll come up short of calling the game at this point. But it is very late in the game for a 2023-24 winter that has basically been a one-hitter for snow on two-thirds of the region and a second straight no-hitter for the rest, mostly in Southside.

At this point, the groundhog is looking like a prophetic mascot with its early spring prediction.

Temperature forecast maps still show a tilt to warmer than normal temperatures for VIrginia 3 to 4 weeks out. At this long range, this is subject to change, of course. Courtesy of Climate Prediction Center, NOAA. — Temperature forecast maps still show a tilt to warmer than normal temperatures for Virginia 3 to 4 weeks out. At this long range, this is subject to change, of course. Courtesy of Climate Prediction Center, NOAA.

Furthermore, winter appears likely to go down as the warmest on record based on average temperature nationally, continuing the general climate trend of recent decades, likely further enhanced by a strong El Niño (warm equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperatures) that is just starting to wane. (In our region, it will be several degrees above normal, but not as warm as last winter or the infamously hot 1931-32 winter.)

Still, what happened six years ago Thursday — and more specifically, in the March that followed — is a cautionary tale about making premature “spring is here” and “winter is over” declarations.

This map displays snowfall amounts for the season. Light to moderate amounts of snow are common across most of Virginia, mostly from the Jan. 15 snowfall over Southwest Virginia, but cut off sharply over Southside. Courtesy of National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, NOAA.

Six years ago: A hot winter day

Feb. 22, 2018, was the warmest meteorological winter (December to February) day on record at several locations in and near our region, including Roanoke, 84 degrees; Blacksburg, 80; Pulaski, 79 (tied with Feb. 26, 1977); Wytheville, 78 (tied with three prior dates in 1950s and 1970s); Hot Springs, 77 (notable for being over 3,700 feet in elevation); and Wise, 75 (since tied by Feb. 23, 2023). The Tri-Cities Airport in Tennessee, across the border from Bristol, registered consecutive highs of 82, 80 and 80 on Feb. 21-23, 2018. Most locations across Southwest and Southside Virginia reached the mid to upper 70s on that summerlike Thursday six years ago.

To give you some idea how warm that 84 was on Feb. 22, 2018, Roanoke averages 30 days each summer with a high temperature lower than 84 degrees.

A backdoor cold front sliding in from the northeast was supposed to curtail our heat that day. It was late, so with sunshine and some warm air compression ahead of the front, the temperature skyrocketed. The cold front only brought temperatures down to the 40s and 50s, so certainly not a very cold front by February standards.

My thoughts on Feb. 22, 2018, were that there was no way that winter — which had not been impressive up to that point — was going to recover from that level of warmth. Yeah, we’d probably get some windy cold fronts in March, but we were done with anything resembling “winter.”

I was wrong. Very wrong.

Sunday featured a spectacular striped sunset for many across Southwest and Southside Virginia, as captured here by meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, looking west. Courtesy of National Weather Service.

March turned colder about a week into the month and the region experienced three fairly widespread snowfall episodes on March 12, March 20-21 and March 24-25. While the first two produced many amounts in the 2- to 6- inch range across much of the region, the last of the three was narrower in scope but extremely heavy in parts of the New River Valley and along the Blue Ridge south of Roanoke, where many spots got 10 or more inches. The NASCAR race in Martinsville on that Saturday night was postponed by a half-foot of snow.

Looking into the March ahead, there is very little at this point that would suggest anything remotely resembling a similar cold, snowy shift will occur, and very much pointing the opposite way. But then, we just saw how a colder pattern shift that looked probable 3 to 4 weeks out has broken down quickly, and 2018 — not a distant year from a colder past, but a recent one amid modern warming climate trends — was quite instructive on how even an extreme warm pattern can flip to something much colder even this late in the season.

It’s hard to see what’s over the hill, so in this space I’ll refrain from waving the checkered flag on a sputtering winter, just yet. But the flag is in hand.

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.