We won’t be waiting until January wondering if it is going to snow this winter, it strongly appears as the sun sets on a Thursday in the first week of December.
In coming hours on this Thursday evening, snow is expected to begin spreading across Virginia from the southwest, covering nearly the entire state in a 1- to 4-inch blanket of white by midday Friday, excluding only the southeast corner in the Hampton Roads area where it may stay a little too warm for snow, and possibly the northern tip where the snow area might not quite make it.
The quick-hitting snow, expected to be mostly out of the commonwealth by noon Friday, is being caused by an upper-level low-pressure system swinging through rapidly from west to east, tracking slightly south of Virginia. This puts the state in a position where moisture drawn in from the south can infuse a deep pool of cold air being pressed southward and trapped against the mountains by high pressure to the north.
Even though many locations reached the 40s on Thursday, temperatures in layers above the surface are much colder. Precipitation falling through colder and drier air aloft will induce evaporational cooling, chilling the air below freezing quickly over most of Virginia, excluding the southeast tip that is likely to stay warm enough for rain.
Almost all of the precipitation is expected to be snow in Virginia, except for rain in the southeast corner, some rain or sleet mix possible in some locations near the North Carolina line, and perhaps a very few stray raindrops in some other parts of Virginia only right as the precipitation begins and the temperature has not quite fallen to near freezing yet.
While it appeared a large part of the southern two-thirds of the state would be in the 2- to 4-inch range, including most of the Southwest and Southside region covered by Cardinal News, there is some potential along and west of the Blue Ridge, and also possibly extending eastward along the U.S. 460 and I-64 corridors into central Virginia, to see a little more, with localized 4-6-inch amounts possible.
Where snow accumulates, temperatures will only stubbornly struggle to near or above the freezing mark on Friday, but high temperatures returning to the 40s for the weekend will enable rather quick melting of this first snow of the season, still almost three weeks before Christmas.
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.
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