Nothing makes it easier to turn the page to snow than actually having snow.
Monday brought the earliest accumulating snow in over a decade to some locations west of the Blue Ridge and scattered a few flurries a little farther east.
It’s perfect timing to start the Cardinal Weather snowfall prediction contest, when Cardinal News’ readers from anywhere can enter their best guesses to compete for a $25 gift card and, more importantly, recognition in this space next April as a top weather prognosticator (or really lucky guesser, as it’s often said about many endeavors in life that it’s better to be lucky than good).
Scroll down a couple of sections to find how to enter the contest. First, we’re going to talk about this week’s snow.
An early taste of snow
Most of the snow that fell was the typical upslope snowfall pattern that develops with just about every cold front in winter, this one riding behind an atypically early punch of Arctic air that also kicked up some heavy lake effect snow around Chicago and other locations.
Cold northwest winds lift Great Lakes moisture up the western side of the rising landscape of the Appalachians, it cools and condenses, and snow develops over the higher mountains and west-facing slopes of West Virginia and far Southwest and Western Virginia. The squalls and showers of snow that develop tend to weaken gliding eastward past the spine of the Appalachians into Virginia, infrequently getting much past the Blue Ridge.
This orographic event was enhanced further by a rather vigorous upper-level low digging southward.
The core of the upper-level low, with its strongest lift, sank even farther south across the Carolinas, dumping some 6-12-inch amounts of snow in North Carolina’s mountains and spraying some snow all the way to the coast, where Myrtle Beach saw its earliest snowflakes on record.
Snow in early November isn’t unprecedented in Virginia’s western side, but some locations saw their earliest accumulating snows in more than a decade.
Burke’s Garden in Tazewell County ended up with 2.4 inches, 0.4 falling by 7 a.m. Monday to be recorded on Nov. 10 and 2.0 more by Tuesday morning to be recorded as Nov. 11. (Volunteer co-op weather stations operate on a different cycle than major climate observation stations, which record data midnight to midnight.) Either one would be the earliest accumulating snow of the season since an inch fell on Nov. 1, 2014.
Blacksburg measured 0.4 inch of snow on Monday, Nov. 10, which was the earliest it had snowed measurably there since half an inch accumulated on Oct. 30, 2012. My weather article on Sunday night looking ahead to the potential for snow had said the last earlier snow was Nov. 3, 1999, but I had overlooked the backside effects of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 that swept some snow into western Virginia and a lot of it into the Southwest corner of the state, as we recalled in this article two years ago.
The snow was streaky, so some locations in Southwest Virginia had whitened ground while others a few miles away saw only flurries, and others, especially east of the Blue Ridge, got nary a flake.
If you like winter, don’t get used to this: It is but a quick punch of Arctic air, with temperatures warming up the rest of the week, some 70s again by the weekend. And it looks like it stays mild next week too.
There are some signs, however, of perhaps a deeper, longer-lasting cold pattern setting up near the end of November extending into December.
Perhaps we’ll revisit that next week, along with some general thoughts about winter. But for now, let’s start collecting your thoughts.
To submit a photo, send it to weather@cardinalnews.org or tweet it to @CardinalNewsVa or @KevinMyattWx. Please identify the location and date of the photo with each submission.
Snowfall prediction contest
The rules haven’t changed from last winter and are similar to the summer heat prediction contest. Let’s go over them below.
(1) Select THREE locations out of the 10 listed at the bottom of this column. Nine locations are identical to those used in both last winter’s snowfall contest and the summer heat contest, but for snow season we add Burke’s Garden in Tazewell County, one of the coldest and snowiest sites in our region, instead of the John H. Kerr Dam in Mecklenburg County, typically the hottest location. The best two guesses will count for each entrant — the third only comes into play if there is a tie.
(2) Guess the total snowfall between Dec.1 and March 31 rounded to the nearest inch for each of those three locations. Snow that falls in November — including any that accumulated early this week — or after March 31 does not count toward the season total for the contest. (If you send me fractions or decimals I round them for you, with halves and .5 rounding up.)
(3) Email your guesses to weather@cardinalnews.org. Give me your name and where you live (general location — town, city, county or portion of county — not specific address). It is OK to include more than one entry on the same email, for different family members (no age limits!), or a group, a school class, etc., just make sure names are clearly labeled for each set of picks.
(4) Deadline for receiving entries is 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 29.
The winner of a $25 gift card for first place will be whoever misses the total snowfall from Dec. 1 to March 31 by the lowest number of total inches for the best two of their three picks, snow totals rounded to the nearest inch. If there is a tie, we’ll consider the third pick as a tiebreaker. If it’s still tied, whoever sends me their entry first wins.
If we get 200 entries, we’ll boost it to a $50 gift card for first place and $25 for second place.
Below is the list of regional sites to choose from to predict snowfall totals, with some historical parameters to help guide your guesses. Remember, pick THREE to guess snow totals for, with the best two counting, unless the third is needed to break a tie.
Abingdon: 1 (1991-92) to 55 (1995-96); Average, 13.
Appomattox: 0 (multiple winters, most recently 2019-20) to 56 (1995-96); Average, 13.
Blacksburg: 1 (2022-23) to 67 (1995-96); Average, 21.
Burke’s Garden: 7 (1956-57) to 112 (1977-78); Average, 38.
Clintwood: 8 (2022-23) to 90 (1995-96); Average, 36.
Danville: 0 (multiple winters, most recently 2023-24) to 41 (1947-48); Average, 7.
Lynchburg: 0 (2019-20) to 57 (1995-96); Average, 15.
Martinsville: 0 (multiple winters, most recently 2023-24) to 46 (1959-60); Average, 9.
Roanoke: 0 (1918-19/1919-20 and 2022-23, rounded down from 0.4) to 63 (1959-60); Average, 18.
Wytheville: 1 (2022-23) to 59 (1986-97); Average, 19.
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: