Southwest and Southside Virginia Weather

Michigan kicks the extra point for the game's only touchdown in a 9-3 win over Ohio State in the November 25, 1950, renewal of their college football rivalry in Columbus, Ohio. This game featured 45 punts, and all three scores in the game were the result, directly or indirectly, of punting miscues. This "Snow Bowl" game was played during heavy snow caused by the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950, which also left up to 19 inches of snow on parts of western Virginia on Thanksgiving weekend. Public Domain photo, originally in Michiganensian yearbook.

A chilly Thanksgiving ahead, but nothing like the Great Appalachian Storm of 1950

by Kevin Myatt November 25, 2025November 25, 2025

An oddly tracking and intensely wrapped-up low-pressure system made for an unforgettable “White Friday” for much of western Virginia 75 years ago.

Fingers of fog work around the mountains of Southwest Virginia earlier this month. Courtesy of Billy Bowling.

Weather

Will it or won’t it snow much this winter? Opposing factors push and pull on predictions, outcome

by Kevin Myatt November 19, 2025November 19, 2025

Winter guessing season is upon us, and you still have your opportunity to send in your picks for our Cardinal Weather snowfall prediction contest.

Monday morning was a thinly coated winter wonderland on the Virginia Tech campus at Blacksburg. Photo by Kevin Myatt.

Weather

Now that some have seen first snow, let’s start the snowfall prediction contest

by Kevin Myatt November 12, 2025November 12, 2025

Monday brought the earliest accumulating snow in over a decade to several locations in western Virginia, but many others got only flurries or no flakes at all.

Two big fish at once: Clayton Gilmore, a 20-year-old Ferrum College student, holds up a striped bass caught at Smith Mountain Lake as Tuesday night's aurora glows in the sky and reflects in the water of the lake. Courtesy of Chad Gilmore.

Weather

Solar storm brings out bright aurora peeking between the clouds

by Kevin Myatt November 12, 2025November 12, 2025

Virginia’s northwest sky glowed red for a few hours on Tuesday night into early Wednesday. Additional auroras visible at our latitude are possible in the next few nights.

A view of one of the remaining trestles off U.S. 58 near Damascus. The trestleis part of the second half of the Virginia Creeper Trail, which was damaged by Hurricane Helene.

Weather

$240.5 million contract awarded for Creeper Trail rebuilding

by Susan Cameron November 10, 2025November 9, 2025

Kiewit Corp., a Nebraska-based contractor, is expected to start working this week. The contract gives the company a year to complete the project.

Scenes like this one from last winter may be common again in some of Southwest Virginia's mountainous areas on Monday. Photo by Erica Myatt.

Weather

Winter is coming Monday: Expected snowfall in parts of Southwest Virginia would be earliest in more than a decade

by Kevin Myatt November 9, 2025November 11, 2025

It’s a typical winter setup with Arctic air from the northwest lifting and condensing moisture over the mountains, but showing up a little earlier than we’ve seen lately.

Large debris piles up on the 13th Street Bridge in southeast Roanoke in the aftermath of the Nov. 4-5, 1985, record flooding on the Roanoke River. Courtesy of City of Roanoke.

Weather

Why we don’t call the infamous Flood of 1985 the Hurricane Juan flood

by Kevin Myatt November 5, 2025November 5, 2025

The Category 1 hurricane’s fingerprints were on the deadly and destructive flooding 40 years ago this week, but the atmospheric setup that yielded the worst river flooding on record at Roanoke and Lynchburg was much more complicated.