The weather of 2025 certainly provided lots of variety, but it was infrequently and only briefly destructive, with nothing comparable to the widespread catastrophic inland effects of Hurricane Helene from the year before, still being recovered from in some areas as the calendar is about to flip to 2026.
Just for a sampler of contrasts: 2025 gave us Martinsville’s warmest July on record followed by the coolest August just down the road at Danville, and the second wettest summer of the young century at Galax while it was the driest summer in nearly 40 years an hour up Interstate 77 at Wytheville.
With a cold winter, cool late summer, and quick start to the current winter in the first half of December, 2025 was the coolest year for average temperatures since either 2014 or 2018 — but still warmer than most of the 20th century — at many regional locations, but also a dry year, running a few inches below annual precipitation norms in much of the region.
These last few days of 2025, after a Christmas week alternating between mild 60s-lower 70s highs and cooler, cloudy days, will be cold but dry after Monday’s windy Arctic blast restored winter. We’ll get back to any snow chances that may develop in the new year soon enough.
Below is my effort to encapsulate the region’s past year in weather through selecting the top 10 weather stories of 2025 for Cardinal News’ coverage area encompassing Southwest and Southside Virginia. (Look at our logo: Everything below the beak and in front of the chest of the red bird.)
The first one, I think, is a clear No. 1 for its widespread and extreme impacts, though not by nearly the margin Helene was the top story for 2024. Beyond that, everything else is debatable. As is always the case, what is the biggest or most memorable weather event will be different for various locations due to specific local impacts, and probably your own personal weather inclinations.
1. February frenzy: Ice, snow, flooding and wind.
Separated out as individual weather events, what happened between Feb. 10 and 20 might fill nearly half this list. But these winter wallops came one right after the other, flooding out over 100 homes, crashing trees and leaving many thousands without power — some multiple times. Emerging from the same overall variable weather pattern as we were caught in the tug of war between winter chill and springlike warmth, we’ll make the middle of February a singular weather story atop the list as the most memorable and impactful weather “event” of 2025 over a wide part of our region.
The timeline of those days with linked Cardinal News articles is below.
· Feb. 10: Snow changing to freezing rain. Snow accumulations mostly 1-4 inches south of U.S. 460 and 4-8 inches north of it, but a narrow band of 10-15 inches occurs along I-64 corridor from Lexington to Covington, the largest snow totals of the season in our region.
Ice continues to be threat Wednesday after snowy Tuesday
· Feb. 11-13: Intermittent freezing rain and borderline-temperature cold rain. Where ice accumulates most, 200,000 lose power in a strip of southern and central Virginia.
Power outages mount as freezing rain turns to ice
Ice storm cuts power to over 200,000, litters landscape with broken trees
· Feb. 14-15: Temperatures warm, with periods of heavy rain, though patchy freezing rain continues for a while in some places. Rivers and creeks overflow with numerous road closures and over 100 homes heavily damaged or destroyed in Southwest Virginia.
Saturday flooding, Sunday high winds bring additional weather woes as thousands still without power from ice
Trump approves disaster declaration for Southwest Virginia communities hit by February flooding
· Feb. 16: Strong winds bring back Arctic air. After only a few thousand customers remained without power from the ice storm earlier in the week, wind damage raises the number back to 200,000.
Gusty winds break more trees and power lines after days of ice and flooding
· Feb. 19-20: Light to moderate snow caps off the period of inclement weather, mostly 1-4 inch amounts.
Snow expected Wednesday over most of Virginia, may be heavy for Richmond and Hampton Roads
Light at the end of tunnel, and it’s not an oncoming train of more rain, ice and snow
2. Persistent and recurring dryness.
The background theme for weather in 2025 was widespread and recurring dryness, peaking during the spring and autumn months. To end 2025, most locations in Southwest and Southside Virginia are 3 to 7 inches below normal in rainfall for the year, with about 60 percent of Virginia in at least moderate drought on the latest U.S. Drought Monitor, including nearly all of Cardinal News’ coverage area except Southwest Virginia west of Interstate 77.
It was the third driest March-April period in 114 years of weather records at Blacksburg with 3.02 inches, the fifth driest in 133 years at Lynchburg with 2.56 inches of rain, and the ninth driest in 114 years at Roanoke with 3.49 inches. October came within a few days of being among the few driest at many locations before some pre-Halloween rain lifted it out of near-record territory. There were multiple large wildfires, including a 2,900-acre fire in Lee County in March and a 4,300-acre fire on the Botetourt-Craig county line in November.
Flooding to fires: Parched March follows soggy February
Drought to deluge, again: Pouring rain returns in May after dry March and April
Rainy last week pulls region out of historic October dryness
3. Sporadic July flash flooding.
Dante, a community along the Russell-Dickenson county line pronounced “daint” rather than “dahn-tay” like the famous author of medieval times, endured its own watery ring of suffering. An extremely localized downpour of up to 7 inches of rain in a few hours on July 18, funneled through hollows off Hazel Mountain into the Lick Creek valley. There were 13 reported injuries and 36 people rescued. More than 20 homes suffered flood damage. While Dante was inundated, other communities in nearby valleys separated by steep ridges experienced no significant flooding. That sporadic pattern played out over much of our region: Galax and nearby Carroll County experienced two rounds of road-damaging flash flooding, with swift-water rescues of motorists, in mid to late July, contributing to a summer with over two feet of rain locally.
13 injured as flash flood prompts evacuations in Russell County; local emergency declared
First responders at Dante flooding saw a woman sucked into a culvert; she was rescued downstream
A summer of downpours and stickiness, but not widespread rain or prolonged extreme heat
4. Early January winter storm.
February’s frenzy of wintry wallops got a very solid preview on Jan. 5-6. Snow of 1-4 inches south of U.S. 460 and 4-8 inches north of it changed to freezing rain and sleet, leaving much of Virginia with a crunchy glacier that hung around for many days as temperatures dropped. Over 100,000 people lost power because of ice accumulation on trees and power lines. The winter storm was followed by a light to moderate snowfall on Jan. 10, and much of January remained cold, though winter storms missed us, including a historic Gulf Coast snowstorm. The wintry periods of January and February made the 2024-25 winter the coldest in a decade, and the iciest in three decades, for much of our region.
Winter storm dumps snow and ice on large swath of Virginia
Thousands of Virginians lose power in winter storm
5. Roanoke flash flooding.
More than a dozen swift-water rescues were conducted as over 4 inches of rain fell in a couple of hours in parts of western and northern Roanoke on Aug. 21. The 3.38 inches that fell between 7 and 8 p.m. was the most rain reported in a single hour at the official Roanoke gauge, located at what is now the Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, narrowly topping 3.35 inches in a downpour with similar effects on July 10, 2015. Peters Creek shot up from a half-foot to 7 feet in a few minutes, and water inundated many streets in the busy Peters Creek Road and Valley View Mall areas of Roanoke. The downpour was loosely connected to the circulation around distant Hurricane Erin, passing well east of the U.S., as moisture was circulated inland, banking against the mountains and subtle atmospheric boundaries and lifted and condensed aloft by daytime heating, leading to narrow strips of torrential rain.
Flash flooding engulfs Roanoke Valley streets, leading to swift-water rescues
A summer of downpours and stickiness, but not widespread rain or prolonged extreme heat
6. Late June heat surge and especially sticky July.
Summer’s hottest temperatures were already past when June rolled over into July, but a long stretch of extremely sticky weather continued. After maximum temperatures of 102 at the John H. Kerr Dam and 100 at South Boston in late June, with many mid-upper 90s elsewhere, the next month turned into Martinsville’s warmest July on record and a top 10 warmest July at Abingdon, Blacksburg, Bristol, Burke’s Garden, and Roanoke. But the warmth of July was not due to excessively hot daytime high temperatures, but rather persistently high dew points that led to sticky days and warm nights. Martinsville’s warmest all-time July average of 78.9 degrees was driven primarily by the month having its warmest daily average low temperature on record, at 68.3 degrees, while its average high temperature of 89.5 degrees ranked only 16th hottest. Similarly, Lynchburg, Roanoke, and Danville each saw July post the fourth warmest average daily low temperatures on record — 69.4, 70.3, and 70.8 respectively — while average daily high temperatures in July were above normal but not extraordinary.
August starts with historically cool days on heels of especially sticky July
Higher dew points bring stickier days, warmer nights, raising human heat stress
Heat to become less extreme, but stickiness stays and stirs up storms
7. Summer gives up early.
As one of the headlines underneath the above listing about sticky summer weather highlights, August departed from the previous two months and began with historically cool days. It was the first time in 114 years of weather records that each of the first five days of August stayed below 80 degrees at Roanoke, and several locations dropped into the 50s for overnight lows. There were a few fairly hot days again at mid-month, but summer never fully recovered, with even deeper chill toward the end of August. Lynchburg had its coldest Aug. 27 morning low in 133 years of official weather record-keeping, dipping to 48, and Burke’s Garden dipped to 36, the coldest it has been on any August date there since 1989. It ended up as the coolest August on record at Danville and among the five coolest at Roanoke, Lynchburg and Martinsville.
August starts with historically cool days on heels of especially sticky July
After historically cool August, is summer really over?
8. Two snows in four days, early December.
In many recent winters, we have been left still wondering at New Year’s Eve when, and if, we would see the first significant snowfall in the ongoing winter. For the vast majority of Cardinal News’ Southwest and Southside Virginia coverage area, that is not the case for the 2025-26 winter, as the region experienced two similar widespread snowfalls four days apart on Dec. 5 and Dec. 8. Most locations got between 2 and 5 inches in each round, but a few spots got a little more or less, the southern rim area at lower elevations along the Tennessee border in Southwest Virginia being the only area that largely missed getting substantial snow both times.
Virginia is for (snow) lovers? Two winter storms in four days, more snow chances ahead
After one of its colder, snowier starts, December is about to shift gears
9. Aurora encore.
After two brilliant displays of the aurora borealis visible at our latitude in 2024 (May 10 and October 10), November 11-12 of 2025 brought on one more similarly brilliant northern lights show, though broken cloud cover created a variable viewing experience across the region. (This is considered “space weather” rather than astronomy, so after the 2024 displays ranked as the No. 3 item for that year, we’ll give this a berth at No. 9 for 2025.)
Solar storm brings out bright aurora peeking between the clouds
10. Lack of tropical system effects.
Other than some flooding in southern Halifax County from Tropical Storm Chantal on July 7-8, the northern fringe of historic flooding in central North Carolina, and the aforementioned tangential effect of Hurricane Erin in Roanoke’s flash flooding of Aug. 21, it is certainly notable in 2025 how there were no widespread major effects from tropical systems on our region. The U.S. experienced no hurricane landfalls even though the Atlantic season was active with three Category 5 storms. While missing tropical system effects contributed to the dryness listed at No. 2, missing these impacts was certainly welcome after Helene in 2024.
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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