Winter, largely missing for Virginians in the last two winters, has been found. And there is more to come.
The coldest part very likely hasn’t happened yet, and the snowiest probably hasn’t, either.
There are strong indications that Arctic air will resurge after a brief late week and early weekend mini-thaw and hang on for at least another full week, perhaps even longer with additional surges, as a rumored milder pattern flip seems to always get kicked farther down the road.
There is no doubting this winter’s cold bona fides. The first dozen days of January rank between 11th and 16th for the coldest start to January, based on average temperature over the first 12 days, in over a century of weather records at Blacksburg, Danville, Lynchburg and Roanoke. At each site, and likely regionwide, it is the coldest start to January since either 2018 or 2010, depending on location. The first half of the meteorological winter as a whole, going back to Dec. 1, ranks among the top third for coldest on record at those sites.
But for those judging winter strictly by snowfall, this winter still has some distance to make up to even be in the discussion among the higher echelon of winters.
While the Jan. 5-6 and Jan. 10-11 winter storms have broken long streaks without significant snow in much of Southside dating back to 2022, only a few locations across Cardinal News’ Southwest and Southside Virginia coverage area have seen more than 4 inches of snow in any single storm, so far.
The first winter storm tilted more to freezing rain and sleet after some early snow, a few spots north of U.S. 460 topping 4 inches before the skating rink developed. The second was a light to moderate snow of 1-4 inches over most of our region, with a few 5-7 amounts in Southwest Virginia west of Interstate 77 and the counties nearest the North Carolina line.
We have not yet had a widespread snow this winter in which most locations in our region got more than 4 inches. That hasn’t happened since January 16, 2022, though many in Southwest Virginia west of I-77 and along the Blue Ridge south of Roanoke topped 4 inches a year ago today on Jan. 15, 2024.
There is of course lots of time for this change, and perhaps, some windows ahead when a bigger snow could happen.
We’ve seen some sunny 40s this week to melt away a good amount of ice and snow in open or south-facing areas in lower and middle elevations. Those of us living on north-facing wooded hillsides, and many folks in higher elevations, have lost very little of our glacier since the first winter storm nine days ago.
On Saturday, much of our region may see some rain with temperatures above freezing — but even this may be tinged by some mixed precipitation at the outset, especially west of the Blue Ridge. Cold air masses are stubborn and, especially with so much snow cover in our higher elevations, scattered in our lower ones and even thicker just to our north and northwest, they tend to bank against the mountains. Don’t be surprised to see some fat flakes, bouncy sleet, or a brief glaze in some areas Saturday morning before it warms above freezing and rains.
And that relatively “mild” rain with temperature in the upper 30s to mid 40s is actually the harbinger of another blast of frigid air, perhaps the coldest one yet, pouring down next week. Just a little bit of warmth and moisture is being lifted ahead of that mass of cold air originating in Siberia. Temperatures may dip into the single-digits on a much wider basis than we’ve seen across our region toward the middle or latter part of next week.
What might at least briefly delay the deepest cold could be, ironically, snow-producing systems. Both Sunday and around Tuesday or Wednesday of next week have some potential to bring widespread snow across much or all of our region.
The mid-week system has the best potential yet to be a larger regionwide snowfall, based on the overall jet stream pattern, but looking at it from almost a week out, it could also be suppressed south of us or out of existence entirely by the mass of Arctic air pressed southward.
Too cold to snow? Maybe.
We will revisit snow chances in days ahead if/when they develop.
For now, let’s take a deeper dive into why it is so cold.
Baked Alaska, frozen Virginia
Through Monday, Anchorage, Alaska, had high temperatures above 40 degrees for eight of the last nine days, with low temperatures above the freezing mark of 32 on two of them and no lower than 30 on five of them.
Fairbanks, Alaska, soared to 47 degrees on Sunday, a record high for Jan. 12, some 46 degrees above its normal high temperature of 1 degree. This relatively balmy midwinter day on the tundra came with not quite 6 hours of low-slanted sunlight.
We need go no further than these statistics to largely explain why it so cold in eastern North America this particular January. Strong high pressure bringing record warmth to Alaska has dislodged Arctic air that would typically be setting up shop over Alaska and northwest Canada, pressing it eastward and southward.
This Alaska/western North America high-pressure system has proven to be a punching dummy, repeatedly bouncing back up when it appeared low-pressure systems and westerly flow would perhaps knock it down or at least sufficiently erode it.
In previous mild winters in our backyard, low-pressure has dominated over Alaska, and deep Arctic air has pooled over the Last Frontier. Last January, Fairbanks dipped as low as -45 at night and never got above 6 degrees in the day. Forecast model rumors of a high over Alaska in late February that would force a good deal of Arctic air southward toward us flopped.
Strong high pressure has also been present over the North Pole and over Greenland, representing the negative phases of the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation, respectively.
These placements of broad high pressure in the northern latitudes have become more or less stuck since early January. That, in a nutshell, is why it’s so cold.
La Niña, the irregularly recurring cooling of a strip of equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures linked to climate patterns around the world, has finally emerged, and its occurrence is loosely linked to milder, drier winter weather patterns for our region, often but not always. We have had some rather cold and snowy winters in weaker incarnations of La Niña, as this one is so far, and almost all La Niña winters have had notable Arctic outbreaks for at least short periods.
Still, long-range forecast models keep wanting to impose something resembling a canonical La Niña pattern on our weather three or four weeks out. Then, when three or four weeks pass, it’s three or four weeks further out.
Especially cold winter patterns like we are experiencing tend to be stubborn and hard to dislodge, often recurring again for short spells even if they are finally loosened. Built-up snowpack in states north of us tends to hold in surface cold air when it would typically erode — this may be a factor for wintry mix early Saturday in what would typically be an entirely rain event.
Before we leave the big picture, it is important to note that the same pattern driving our persistent chill was also a primary instigator of the hot, dry east winds blowing off the desert that fanned the Los Angeles area’s wildfires.
Alaska warmth, Eastern U.S. chill and Southern California wildfires are all linked. Changing global climate likely plays a factor in the intensity of all three, but the connection between those extremes has been long known. It is not really unprecedented that a winter day is warmer in Fairbanks than in Lynchburg, but actually an expectation of the atmospheric pattern we have been having.
First Southside snow in years
South Boston got 3 inches of snow on Friday night and Saturday morning, as measured at 7 a.m. on Jan. 11 at the cooperative weather station.
That was the first time the Halifax County town got any snow of even a tenth of an inch in 1,085 days, when 0.2 inch fell on Jan. 28, 2022. South Boston missed out on accumulation in both the March 12, 2023, snow that put a dusting on many places across our region that had missed snow all winter and also on the Jan. 15 snow a year ago that dumped at least an inch or 2 everywhere across our region except Southside.
It was the first time in 1,091 days since an inch of snow had fallen (Jan. 22, 2022), first time in 1,109 days since 2 inches had fallen (Jan. 4, 2022), and the first time in 2,224 days since at least 3 inches had fallen (Dec. 10, 2022 — the last foot of 15 inches). South Boston’s records only go back to 1971, but those are all the longest streaks of their kind in a little more than a half-century.
Danville and Martinsville have also recently snapped out of long streaks going back to March 12, 2023, for any measurable snow and to January 2022 for at least an inch.
While most locations are running ahead of seasonal snowfall totals for any winter since 2021-22 or even 2018-19, that’s not true at every location.
Roanoke, which has seen heavier snows pass north and south in the two winter storms so far, actually had more total snow through Jan. 15 last year, 4 inches, than it has so far this winter, 3 inches.
Roanoke ended last winter with 4.3 inches. While odds are strong this winter will top that number in the Star City, it is not known yet if amounts will pile up there and everywhere across our region to make this a truly memorable winter for snow.
The 2024-25 winter seems destined to be considered a “hard winter,” but it remains to be seen if it will be considered a snowy one.
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. Sign up for his weekly newsletter:
