Power outages were mounting rapidly on Wednesday morning as freezing rain continued to build ice on trees and power lines.
According to utility data aggregator poweroutage.us, some 121,000 utility customers in Virginia were without power as of just before 8:30 a.m. Update: By 12:55 p.m., the figure was up to 187,136.
The greatest numbers were in a stretch from the Blue Ridge near the North Carolina state line northeast across much of Southside Virginia and continuing to the Richmond metro area. Carroll County had the most without power, over 7,500, but Powhatan County some 200 miles northeast had almost as many with nearly 7,000.
Grayson, Henry, Franklin, Pittsylvania, and Prince Edward counties each had between 3,000 and 6,000 without power, with many neighboring counties to those reporting from a few hundred to just over 2,000 in the dark.
Freezing rain was continuing to fall across much of the region on Wednesday morning, and is expected to continue intermittently through the day.
Temperatures may rise a few critical degrees to just above freezing later today over parts of the southern half of Virginia, but progress will be stubborn with widespread snow cover and cold air being banked against the higher terrain.
The ice follows widespread snow and sleet on Wednesday that accumulated 1-5 inches over much of Virginia along and south of the U.S. 460 corridor connecting Roanoke and Richmond, 4-10 inches to the north, and locally over a foot along the I-64 corridor in western Virginia, with Clifton Forge measuring 15 inches. Wet snow accumulation, caked by ice, was also contributing to sagging and breaking trees and power lines.
Additional rain and freezing rain are expected Wednesday night, including over parts of the northern half of the state that saw mostly snow on Wednesday, the difference between damaging ice and cold rain from location to location coming down to a degree or two of air temperature near the freezing mark.
A sharp warmup with 40s and 50s high temperatures is expected on Thursday to melt away much of this week’s ice and snow.
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: