I've been light on blogs this winter for many reasons. One main reason is the many storm events AFTER daylight savings time. Model data runs late and it's just easter to tweet out thoughts then an entire blog.
I've had several messages about WILL it snow this weekend. Model data has been all over the place and knowing the lateness of the year I was certain the risk of snow was good, but models that showed 6+ inches were easy to discount. In 120 years of record, our largest April snowfall is 3.9 inches in 1907, our last inch was in 1992 and last tenth of an inch was recent, in 2013.
Since 2009 alone, we've had 5 storms above 10 inches measure here in town. So, any accumulation Saturday (Heck and Maybe Monday) is a big deal climatology wise, but not a huge impact compared to rain. (Rain or snow on April 7th will ruin your day but travel should be FINE, except maybe if it snows hard a few hours)
So, what will happen??
Data has gone from heavy snow well into NC and us being on the north fringe, to the best snows being north of DC, to now showing the best snow maybe to our south and east. Now, models don't control weather, they display what we MAY see happen. There are a lot of moving parts, crazy cold air pushing in fast but pretty warm air in place before the storm approaches.
Rain pushes in Friday overnight and flips to sleet and snow before ending. Some data is pushing for another enhanced wave of snow for parts of the region after the chance to ice/snow. Another storm pushes in late Sunday that could give ANOTHER coating or more of snow to parts of our region.
Rather than clutter the blog with pics, I'm going to post various maps from resources about the storm. Remember, anything that is a .1 of an inch is a VERY rare event. (Roanoke/Blacksburg see a little more and had over an inch in 2013, Danville Likely a bit less) Some people are bullish on an inch or two in part due to the strong push of cold air with warm temps to the south could feed bands a little better than modeled. I'm not sold either way yet, and honestly because it's april I'm not overly concerned other than the "historic" nature rather than impact on the day. Sports would be cancelled with rain. If we see snow, it may impact your day a few hours but I don't expect long term dangerous roads.
So, make sure you have me on Twitter or Facebook under LynchburgWx/VirginiaWx.
