The sun made several odd appearances, obscured by thin clouds, during snowfall in the Roanoke and New River valleys on Friday and Saturday. Warmer sunshine may make a serious dent in accumulated snow and sleet next week. Photo by Kevin Myatt.
The sun made several odd appearances, obscured by thin clouds, during snowfall in the Roanoke and New River valleys on Friday and Saturday. Warmer sunshine may make a serious dent in accumulated snow and sleet next week. Photo by Kevin Myatt.

It has been 12 days since many of us across Cardinal News’ Southwest and Southside coverage area saw the ground.

A lot of secondary streets, both in urban and rural areas, have stayed treacherous with a hard-shell glacier of sleet and snow that only Tuesday began to soften in some places. All but the northern and eastern fringes of our area got more snow on top of that crust Saturday.

Temperatures have scarcely been above the freezing mark since Jan. 23 until finally punching above 40 in most places Tuesday, only to be followed with some patchy snow and sleet Tuesday night and possibly some additional light snow on this Wednesday evening.

A brief burst of heavy snow on Tuesday night covered over cleared streets and parking lots. Additional snow is possible on Wednesday evening, mostly light amounts. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
A brief burst of heavy snow on Tuesday night covered over cleared streets and parking lots. Additional snow is possible on Wednesday evening, mostly light amounts. Courtesy of National Weather Service.

Some spots in Southwest Virginia dipped below -10 on Monday morning, with an official low of -12 at Burke’s Garden, and some unofficial sensors down to -17 in the Tazewell area.

We can go on and on about what a wintry stretch this has been. But there does finally appear to be at least a relaxation of it ahead that could warm winter-weary hearts in the days before Valentine’s Day.

Some precipitation in the Jan. 24-25 winter storm resembled needles of ice. Courtesy of Angela Moses.
Some precipitation in the Jan. 24-25 winter storm resembled needles of ice. Courtesy of Angela Moses.

Some of the atmospheric pieces that have gone into creating this extended Arctic cold spell with two significant winter storms (the first one got everybody in some way, the second one hit most of us at least a little, some a whole lot) are starting to shift.

Northern latitude high-pressure blocking that forced so much cold southward appears to be relaxing, with the high pressure over the western U.S. that helped pile-drive that cold air into the eastern U.S. being replaced over the next 7-10 days by a deep jet stream trough.

This is expected to lead to a much warmer pattern over the central and eastern U.S. toward the middle of the month. We might see some days with 50s highs next week.

But there are some cautions before early-spring seekers let their hearts run away with flowery hopes:

  • Another Arctic front keeps the cold air in for the coming weekend.
  • The potential warmup is mostly beyond a week out, where weather patterns often turn out meeker than they look from a distance, if not total mirages.
  • Sometimes, a large winter storm develops as or just before the pattern changes. No strong signs of that right now for our region, but keep it in mind.
  •  Cold-air damming — high pressure pushing cold air southward, trapping it against the mountains — has a way of interrupting warm patterns for us. This happened repeatedly in late December when several potential days of 60s turned into only a few.
  •  Winter likely comes back at some point after the mid-February warmup — though probably not as severely as we’ve experienced the last couple of weeks.
This is a rare view from "inside" a waterfall -- the frozen Cascades Falls in Giles County. Courtesy of Matt Weddle.
This is a rare view from “inside” a waterfall — the frozen Cascades Falls in Giles County. Courtesy of Matt Weddle.

Much of our region is still considered to be in drought, with as much as 1-2 inches of “rain” locked up in a long-lasting snowpack that will help that situation some as it melts.

What we don’t want to happen is a sudden warmup combined with heavy rain, running off the glacier until it can melt it away. Something like that happened in February 2003, the last really deep sleet storm much of our region got, and also after the huge January 1996 snowstorm, causing flooding.

A gradual warmup through the 40s and 50s while waiting till after the melt for a more substantial rain would be preferable.

While most amounts were in the 6-10 range across southern Virginia from Danville west to the southwest corner, a few spots, like this higher elevation area at Lebanon in Russell County, got more than a foot. Courtesy of Billy Bowling.
While most amounts were in the 6-10 range across southern Virginia from Danville west to the southwest corner, a few spots, like this higher elevation area at Lebanon in Russell County, got more than a foot. Courtesy of Billy Bowling.

Last weekend’s snowstorm

Saturday was both an enormous bust and an enormous boom of a snowstorm, and something in between, depending on what part of Cardinal News’ Southwest and Southside Virginia coverage area you reside.

For Lynchburg, it was barely a dusting, decimals of an inch. For Patrick County, it was quite a dumping, topping a foot in a few spots.

Many snowfalls we get have a heavier area but then gradually fan out to somewhat lesser amounts over 100 miles or more. But sometimes the margin between a thin coating and a thick plopping is 30 miles or less.

Take Roanoke County, for instance, with about an inch at its northern tip and near 6 at its southern tip 25 miles away.

Snow totals in Saturday's snowstorm for a large part of Southwest and Southside Virginia covered by the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
Snow totals in Saturday’s snowstorm for a large part of Southwest and Southside Virginia covered by the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
Snow totals in Saturday's snowstorm for the southwest corner of Virginia, in the upper right of this map from the National Weather Service office in Morristown, Tennessee. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
Snow totals in Saturday’s snowstorm for the southwest corner of Virginia, in the upper right of this map from the National Weather Service office in Morristown, Tennessee. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
Snow totals in Saturday's snowstorm for much of Southside and Central Virginia plus the Hampton Roads area on this map from teh National Weather Service office in Wakefield, Virginia. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
Snow totals in Saturday’s snowstorm for much of Southside and Central Virginia plus the Hampton Roads area on this map from the National Weather Service office in Wakefield, Virginia. Courtesy of National Weather Service.

The complexities of a dynamic upper-level low spinning up a coastal low created a confusingly streaky snowfall pattern with a hard northern edge that ended up much farther south than looked likely a couple days earlier, but later forecasts moved toward.

Snowfall of an inch or more reached as far north as just north of Roanoke and just south of Lynchburg but couldn’t push much farther east than South Boston over much of Southside, except for some places right along the North Carolina border. Then significant snow climbed northward again over Hampton Roads.

A strong upper-level low was responsible for the snow over western North Carolina into Southwest Virginia. This low tracked a bit too far southwest for what would have been an optimum path for a broader heavy snowstorm over more of Virginia. The atmospheric lift had a northward limit to where it could lift moisture sufficiently for snowfall in the dry Arctic air.

Snow west, snow east of Raleigh and Fayetteville, N.C. on Saturday afternoon. Eventually this gap between snow produced by the upper-level low to the west and the coastal surface low to the east eventually closed for 1-4-inch amounts in central North Carolina while much larger amounts occurred east and west. National Weather Service radar via RadarScope.
Snow west, snow east of Raleigh and Fayetteville, N.C., on Saturday afternoon. Eventually this gap between snow produced by the upper-level low to the west and the coastal surface low to the east eventually closed for 1-4-inch amounts in central North Carolina while much larger amounts occurred east and west. National Weather Service radar via RadarScope.

The lack of snow in much of central Virginia and eastern parts of Southside was the result of the same wrongly named “dry slot” that almost kept Raleigh-Durham out of North Carolina’s mighty snowstorm that was raging east and west. While dry Arctic air was involved, it was more a “lack of lift slot.”

The upper-level spin helped trigger a surface low just offshore of the Carolinas, which gradually took over as the focal point of the winter storm. There was a zone that was largely “jumped” by the two different manifestations of the snowstorm. The gap eventually closed in North Carolina to get a couple inches into Raleigh, but it left much of the area from Farmville to Richmond without snow, with very little southward until a tiny sliver near the North Carolina line.

Snow plows work Saturday's snowstorm in Patrick County, where 6-10 inches of snow was common and a few spots topped 12. Courtesy of Virginia Department of Transportation
Snow plows work Saturday’s snowstorm in Patrick County, where 6-10 inches of snow was common and a few spots topped 12. Courtesy of Virginia Department of Transportation

Meanwhile, much of a zone a couple counties deep from Danville west to the southwest tip of Virginia got 4-10 inches, with a few isolated higher amounts. An evening spoke of heavier snow pushed much of the New River Valley above 4 inches also, with closer to 1-3 range in the Roanoke Valley and southeast along and just north of the Roanoke River/Smith Mountain Lake/Staunton River.

This snow of course, for just about anywhere along and east of the Interstate 77 corridor, came on top of leftover sleetpack of 1-6 inches.

Snow drifting back over cleared roads was a problem after the weekend snowstorm, as shown by this photo on Virginia 640 in Carroll County. Courtesy of VDOT
Snow drifting back over cleared roads was a problem after the weekend snowstorm, as shown by this photo on Virginia 640 in Carroll County. Courtesy of VDOT.

Snowfall contest standings

All locations used as sites for the Cardinal Weather snowfall contest have now hit double-digits. Here is the listing of season total snowfall, through Monday, not including any amounts that might be added Tuesday or Wednesday. Remember that snow through March 31 counts in the contest, and the best two of contestants’ three picks counting (or all three if there is a tie). I don’t actively keep up with contestants’ standings during the season, but I do keep up with seasonal snowfall at the sites we use, listed below, which also gives a good regional snapshot of the winter to date.

Abingdon:  11

Appomattox:  14

Blacksburg:  19

Burke’s Garden:  31

Clintwood:  14

Danville:  13

Lynchburg:  12

Martinsville:  10

Roanoke:  13

Wytheville:  15

The Roanoke River froze over during the recent Arctic cold spell. Courtesy of Sammy Oakey.
The Roanoke River froze over during the recent Arctic cold spell. Courtesy of Sammy Oakey.

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.  

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.

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Kevin Myatt has written about Southwest and Southside Virginia weather for the past two decades, previously...