Several different colors paint the map on the National Weather Service's map for its Blacksburg office's forecast area on Tuesday, including blue for winter weather advisories, green for flash flood watch, beige for wind advisories and yellow for high wind warnings. In many cases, localities are covered by more than one alert, only one of which can be represented in the coloring scale. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
Several different colors paint the map on the National Weather Service's map for its Blacksburg office's forecast area on Tuesday, including blue for winter weather advisories, green for flash flood watch, beige for wind advisories and yellow for high wind warnings. In many cases, localities are covered by more than one alert, only one of which can be represented in the coloring scale. Courtesy of National Weather Service.

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Overlapping weather alerts for flooding, wind, and wintry mix cover Virginia like a patchwork quilt on Tuesday as a strong low-pressure system moving to our northwest buffets the commonwealth with a buffet of inclement weather.

There may also be a risk of severe thunderstorms — or at least strong downdrafts within a thunder-free squall line — especially from Southside and Central Virginia toward Hampton Roads, and Wednesday will bring some snow squalls into the mountains rimming the western edge of the state. Virginia, however, will be outside the highest risk of tornadoes affecting states to the south and blizzard conditions sweeping through the upper Midwest, all part of the same powerful and complex storm system tracking northeastward from the Southern Plains to the Great Lakes.

·        For more detailed information on specific weather advisories, watches and warnings affecting your location, visit the National Weather Service websites for the agency’s Blacksburg; Wakefield; Sterling; Morristown, Tennessee; or Charleston, West Virginia, offices linked here.

A strong low approaching the Great Lakes will spread a variety of inclement weather across the eastern half of the nation on Tuesday as a new system enters the Pacific Northwest that will affect the East agin by Friday. Courtesy of National Weather Service.
A strong low approaching the Great Lakes will spread a variety of inclement weather across the eastern half of the nation on Tuesday as a new system enters the Pacific Northwest that will affect the East again by Friday. Courtesy of National Weather Service.

This system follows on the heels of a Saturday mixed-precipitation episode that brought ice-laden trees and patchy ice on roads to many localities near the Blue Ridge and westward with spotty light ice preceding cold rain elsewhere. During pre-dawn hours Tuesday, some ice is possible again along the highest elevations of the Blue Ridge south of Roanoke and also in the mountains along the western rim of the state from Interstate 64 northward, where there may also be some wet snow as precipitation begins. Even lower elevations of the New River, Roanoke and Shenandoah valleys may see some mixed-in sleet before sunrise Tuesday. The surge of warmth and moisture ahead of the strong low will briefly catch up to pre-existing cold air before scouring it out during the day Tuesday.

Temperatures will warm during the day with strong southerly flow ahead of the storm system, many locations eventually reaching the 50s by late Tuesday.

Dense bands of moisture lifted northward will bring nearly continuous and occasionally heavy rainfall over the entire state of Virginia, with amounts of 1-3 inches common and some greater amounts particularly along the eastern flanks of ridges and wherever heavier bands park or repeat for an extended period. A final band of heavier rain, possibly accompanied by strong winds and some thunder, will move across much of the state in the afternoon and early evening, with rainfall sharply curtailing afterward.

Although much of the western two-thirds of the state is still considered in some level of long-term dryness, recent rains have saturated the ground and raised river and creek levels sufficiently that some may be pushed over their banks by heavy rain on Tuesday. Downpours can also cause more localized ponding and drainages overflowing onto roadways.

Gusty winds, possibly topping 40 mph at times, will develop with the storm system also, out of the east at first, then out of the south, turning around to the west once a cold front pulls through overnight into Wednesday. Some trees may be toppled in wet ground and scattered power outages are possible.

Snow showers crossing the mountains in the westerly and northwesterly winds behind the storm system on Wednesday may accumulate some in the higher elevations west of Interstate 77 and near the West Virginia state line.

A nearly identical storm to Tuesday’s is expected to affect much of the eastern two-thirds of the country by Friday, and early next week may bring a mixed precipitation across the southern half of the nation that may affect parts of Virginia as colder air settles in. Next week may also bring some extremely cold low temperatures in the single-digits and teens.

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.

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