A gusty squall line knocked power out to nearly 115,000 utility customers in western and central Virginia on Monday afternoon.
Power outages were greatest along the Blue Ridge and westward as far west and south as the Roanoke Valley and Franklin County. Albermarle County reported over 16,000 customers without power as of 7 p.m. Monday, according to utility data aggregator poweroutage.us. The city of Lynchburg had more than 7,000.
Other localities reporting between 1,500 and 6,000 without power included the city of Roanoke and the counties of Roanoke, Franklin, Bedford, Rockbridge, Augusta, Rockingham, Nelson and Buckingham.
Roanoke’s airport clocked a top wind gust of 59.8 mph at 4:37 p.m., topping the severe threshold of 58 mph. The western edge of the squall line was actually starting to break up as it moved into the Roanoke Valley, but the gusty outflow continued onward.
The squall line held together much more strongly to the north and east, where the most power outages occurred. It was continuing through southeastern Virginia early Monday evening, still fairly potent.
The New River Valley and points west across Southwest Virginia were largely spared from the effects of the squall line, just some intermittent showers with a few gusts near Blacksburg and Christiansburg.
There were numerous reports of trees and utility lines blown down across many localities in western and central Virginia.
The power outages and damage continued through a swath of central West Virginia as well.
The definition of a derecho requires nearly continuous severe-level winds, 58 mph or greater, over a swath at least 240 miles long and 60 miles wide. This may come close to that, as meteorologists will assess in days ahead.
Derecho or not, there may be additional severe storm clusters moving southeast out of the Ohio Valley in days ahead, particularly on Tuesday. Monday’s squall line came a day earlier than what is forecast to be a day with a potent severe storms risk on Tuesday, again moving southeastward into Virginia.
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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