“Waiting for the next snowfall, or a soaking rain” was the headline of last week’s Cardinal Weather column. And it could easily be the headline this week as well. But that would be boring.
Much of our area did have a fairly soaking rain on Saturday, topping an inch for many locations. But it didn’t solve the long-term dryness.
In fact, all of Virginia except the southwest and southeast corners, and the Eastern Shore, is now in a drought watch or warning from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. A big chunk of Cardinal News’ coverage area from Roanoke and the Blue Ridge across Southside was upgraded to a warning this week.
We need some rinse-and-repeat for real drought relief, and that doesn’t seem to be on tap in the current weather pattern.
And quite a few locations along and west of the Blue Ridge did in fact see snow on Sunday, even accumulating a little bit, as snow squalls blew in behind a fresh push of Arctic air at the vanguard of a colder shift in our weather pattern after a mild start to January. Some snow squall warnings got issued along the Interstate 81 corridor for brief, but heavy and frantically blowing, snowfall.
But the question on almost everybody’s mind, whether that elicits joy or dread, is when (or IF) the next widespread, significant snowfall or winter storm will affect our region, now five weeks since the vast majority of Southwest and Southside experienced two snowfalls in four days back in early December.
Nothing certain, but some possibilities
There is nothing quite yet that screams snowstorm or ice storm or major messy mix in the developing weather pattern, but some windows of wintry intrigue are starting to emerge when something white or icy could spin up, as a pattern of intermittent cold shots from Canada with a somewhat more southward suppressed storm track is taking shape.
One window is passing on this Wednesday night and Thursday with only light snow expected, mainly along and west of the Blue Ridge.
Another opens near Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and another a few days later around Jan. 23-25 or so. In fact, these may continue to happen every 3-5 days or so through the rest of January into early February.
These are periods when upper-level disturbances or troughs are swinging through across the central and eastern U.S. Various atmospheric nuances that can’t be seen in great detail until perhaps 24-48 hours beforehand determine whether these systems pass through dry or with only light precipitation, or develop something more widespread and substantial.
If you think back to early December, the Dec. 5 and Dec. 8 snows, each 2-5 inches over most of our region with some slivers of less and more, were both very iffy a few days out. Each of them actually seemed to disappear from likelihood for a short time, then grew in likelihood and significance in forecasts through the last 36 hours or so before they occurred.
In our age of ubiquitous information and communication, any computer forecast model showing anything even briefly that looks like a major snowstorm even a week or two out gets bounced around the internet and social media until it stirs up oversized expectations of what might happen many days too early.
And that has happened some in the past several days, until the realities settle in that even medium size winter storms are difficult to put together. But these fantasy storms on the models do often mark windows of potential when something could happen.
Another fallacy that develops is the “all or nothing” idea that every factor and parameter has to be absolutely textbook perfect to realize a winter storm in our region or nothing will happen. Having followed our regional weather for over a quarter-century now, I can tell you that almost every winter storm setup that has manifested, including some really big ones, has a screw or two loose.
Some limiting factors to overcome
There are some limiting factors presently for getting the next significant snowfall or a sizable mixed winter storm.
The southern branch of the jet stream continues to be fairly weak. Most of the storm systems we are seeing are riding in on the northern branch. We can and do occasionally get significant wintry precipitation from northern stream systems, but they often don’t tap the deeper moisture as would a storm track nearer the Gulf Coast, and it’s difficult for them to track far enough south for us to be in the zone of stronger lift north of the passing low.
Also, without the southern branch being active, it is difficult to achieve the “phasing” that occurs when the northern and southern branches combine forces to rev up a really large storm system.
Another limiting factor presently is the intermittent nature of the cold air shots. The pattern is not quite set to lock these in for long periods of time, so we’ll get a blast of cold air, then it moderates, even turns mild a day or two, before the next cold reinforcement arrives.
With time, these may become a little more locked in toward the end of the month. But now it would be fairly easy for a system that manages to spin up substantial precipitation to pass through between cold shots, leaving us with mostly rain — not a bad thing for the drought concerns and folks rooting against the snow, but “get cold, warm up and rain” is never a fan favorite with snow lovers.
So that’s where we stand now. Light snow on Thursday morning. Maybe something Sunday or Monday, but it doesn’t look like much, as of now. Then a storm system around Jan. 23-25 that could be anything this far out, but perhaps a window when something wintry could happen.
A big snowstorm coming — someday
When and if we get to a point where a significant winter storm, or other inclement weather event with widespread impact across Southwest and Southside Virginia, appears likely to occur, I will post a new article here on Cardinal News outside of my regular cycle of Wednesday night weather columns (unless, of course, the event just happens to be coming in on Wednesday night or Thursday).
Half of our region looking likely to get at least 2 inches of snow or a tenth of an inch of ice is roughly a low bar for when I plan to write preliminary articles on winter weather events outside of the regular weekly columns.
It is always possible something might occasionally sneak up on us that’s bigger than expected without a prior article. If that’s the case, we’ll jump on it as quickly as we can to outline its impacts as it’s occurring or shortly thereafter, as we’ve done with multiple localized flash flooding events that are impossible to pinpoint before they occur.
For a bit more frequent weather discussion and occasional speculation, visit the Kevin Myatt Weather Wonders Facebook page or the @kevinmyattwx handle on X (I still call it Twitter).
Someday, later this winter, next winter, two or three or five or 10 winters from now, our region is going to experience a widespread snowstorm of a foot or more. This will occur even with the influence of climate change — theoretically, in some cases, a truly major winter storm could even be enhanced by it — and how many ever years it has been since the last “big one,” currently over eight years for a foot or more covering at least half our region.
When that finally does happen, it probably won’t be something ballyhooed 10 days ahead of time by social medialogists’ hot takes based on a couple runs of a forecast model. It will be something that at first seems iffy, then a little more possible, then probable as a light to moderate event, and then building upward and more intense in forecasts within the last 24-48 hours before it happens.
That’s why it’s important for those of us who communicate about weather to watch every one of these windows of wintry intrigue, knowing full well most of them are going to close shut or others may turn into something of some significance but well short of fondest dreams of snow lovers and darkest nightmares of those longing for summer.
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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