With temperatures expected to poke above 90 degrees at many Southwest and Southside Virginia locations this week, there is no better time to announce the winner of the 2025-26 Cardinal Weather snowfall prediction contest.
The contest came down to two Roanokers and their nearly identical predictions for Blacksburg and Lynchburg.
Bob Kolinski called for 12 inches for Lynchburg and 23 for Blacksburg. Twila DiMarco had 12 inches for Lynchburg and 24 inches for Blacksburg.
Rounded to the nearest inch, the Dec. 1 to March 31 snow totals for those two sites were 12 for Lynchburg (12.1 inches) and 23 for Blacksburg (23.1 inches). That gave Kolinski a narrow victory, with zero error points, while DiMarco missed Blacksburg by 1 inch.
They each also guessed snow totals for their home city, but were farther off: Kolinski 17 inches and DiMarco 22 inches, when Roanoke got 14 (13.9 inches). The two best guesses of three entered count initially in the contest, but Kolinski still would have won had that been a tie with a closer guess on Roanoke.
For his winter prognostication prowess, Kolinski wins a $25 gift card.
Dam Camden of Daleville and Barry Webb of Cave Spring were the next-best forecasters among 117 entries received by email in November. Each of them did well with the snowiest location among the contest’s 10 sites.
Webb guessed 40 inches for Burke’s Garden and Camden 41 inches, when the Tazewell County elevated valley location measured 39.8 inches from Dec. 1 and March 31, rounding up to 40. So Webb’s Burke’s Garden prediction was right on the nose while Camden was only 1 inch off.
Camden also had 13 inches for Roanoke, which was one off the 14 total, and Webb had 25 inches for Blacksburg, two off the 23 total, for a combined error score of 2 inches off in each case. (Third picks of 17 inches for Blacksburg by Camden and 20 inches for Roanoke by Webb were each off by six.)
There was someone else who did well picking Burke’s Garden: This writer. I also called for 40 inches.
Overall, this was my best winter thus far in picking snowfall totals for all 10 sites in the contest, correctly predicting Burke’s Garden and Martinsville (12 inches) and only two to four inches off seven of the eight other locations.
While the idea expressed here back in early December (read the section at the end of the linked column) that this winter would be fairly similar to last year was a pretty good one, it’s always better to be lucky than good with snowfall prediction contests.
A degree or two warmer aloft could have scuttled two early season wet snows on Dec. 5 and 8 and scraped a few inches off these totals, and conversely, a somewhat colder atmosphere aloft on Jan. 24-25 or a slight north nudge in the storm track on Jan. 31 could have ratcheted up these snow totals considerably.
Snow totals from Dec. 1 to March 31, rounded to the nearest inch, for the 10 locations used in the contest are listed below, with my guess in parentheses.
· Abingdon: 15 (Kevin: 18)
· Appomattox: 16 (Kevin: 14)
· Blacksburg: 23 (Kevin: 25)
· Burke’s Garden: 40 (Kevin: 40)
· Clintwood: 36 (Kevin: 45)
· Danville: 13 (Kevin: 11)
· Lynchburg: 12 (Kevin: 15)
· Martinsville: 12 (Kevin: 12)
· Roanoke: 14 (Kevin: 18)
· Wytheville: 17 (Kevin: 21)
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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