House of Cards.

This winter has been interesting with many events but all of them VERY small. Fragile house of cards on tap that could collapse either way.

Guess what-- he comes ANOTHER or two.

Today will be very mild as we have a cold front approaching, SW winds in front put us WELL into the 50's this afternoon. Temps will cool off quickly and a little impulse along the wave will induce some light rain that could end as a light snow. At best, we COULD see a coating out of this overnight.

From the odds makers- Tonight.

Basically dry 25%
A little rain ending as snow, if you don't see it you won't knot it happened. 65%
Coating to an inch of snow 15%


From there, a second piece of energy rotates through tomorrow and forms a low pressure NEAR the Outer Banks. This system is interesting in that the models are trying to developed some type of inverted trough. If this happens, we could see this but a coating or even a couple inches is possible. This will be a have or have nots where some places see 2-3 inches and others get nothing.

Odds for Saturday- which at this time FAVOR eastern regions.

1. A few flurries 40%
2. Coating to an inch, especially eastern parts 40%
3. 1-3 inches localized areas 20%

I'll update FB and twitter later today with ideas. If you want a coating, tomorrow looks much better.

Saturday Morning Coffee

Well, If you felt neglected during the recent bouts of small snow, sleet and cold-- my apologies. Sometimes it's hard to blog when we MAY get a half inch. Those parade of clippers did about what I expected here and that storm Thursday night wasn't a big deal in our region BUT Roanoke was the crush zone with 3-4 inches in the city and reports up to 5-6 just outside the city. I would not of been shocked with an inch or two but the end results were incredible.

Our Weather- 2 chances of snow in the next 8-9 days.

1. Valentines day- some of the models have pushed a storm towards us. With minimal cold air in place, I like this storm better for Harrisonburg north. The Euro is not on the storm yet, so by no means is this a lock.

2. Presidents Day weekend. Some data has signaled a shot at a larger storm. It's been harder to get a larger winter type storm with winter so I'm not locking this in, but the potential exists. This is a better set up then valentines day.


Pic of the day-

If you watched any of the storm coverage last night-- an incredible band of snow crashed ashore over long island and CT. Reports of 7 inches plus in an hour.

I've taken pics before in 3 inches an hour. The light makes it look different and it was NOTHING close to this. 

Light ice event..

** edit at 5PM ***

NWS has upgrade the entire region to a Freezing Rain Advisory.

not a very WET system as total precipitation will be maybe .10 to .15, but colder ground temps and surface temps in the upper 20's and low 30's will make for some NASTY road conditions through mid to late morning.




National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisories for all the counties along and east of the Blue Ridge. The freezing will be light-- maybe .10 total falls out the sky but with the colder temps as of late and LIGHT stuff falling it has the makings for a disaster in the am. Half the issue is that folks may not see the ice on their driveway, get on the road and there is just a few slick spots here and there. There was an event in December of 2007 where there was .02 precipitation and the road were just a disaster.

Side note-- If I were king of the world, We'd of had advisories everywhere Friday BEFORE 10 am. It was a situation with the cold temps, even an inch would make a traffic issue-- and that's clearly what we had Friday.

Tomorrow-- The freeze line appears to be south and East of Lynchburg. With that, I'd push the advisories into Lynchburg, Campbell and maybe even Appomattox counties. Better safe than sorry. :)

Be safe tomorrow morning. By 10 am, we look to be all good again. Expect school delays.

Snow Event

This has not been a fun event. Cold temps, dry air and models all over the place. And, being all over the place varies snow from 1-3 inches. It's not a huge storm and never really had high side potential. However, I take time and put my best effort into these forecast.

The air is very cold and dry, the upper air support is meager and weak and the energy is transferring to a coastal low that will scoot away from the coast. It's a losing process all around.

I've made minor changes to my ideas. 2-5 NRV, MT Empire and those areas. I think sleet pushes in down south towards Danville, Martinsville and South Boston eventually. Roanoke gets around 2 in the city proper and east towards LYH is about an inch region wide. However, some of the high resolution models are picking up on a decent band of snow forming near the NRV and pushing east just along and south of 460. So, Roanoke and Lynchburg in this path. If THIS happens, a quick 2-3 inches is possible in those regions.

Friday, January 26th 2013

Will update early AM if needed, but just know that MOST areas east of Roanoke are in the ONE inch side of things. Be safe, even if it's a dusting. Colder temps, way down near 10-15 tonight will make the roads rough quickly. It's my experience that either extreme slush list last week during the HEAVY snow or lighter snow with cold temps makes for the worst driving.

Flurries tonight-- Accumulating snow possible Friday

The cold has arrived and we are sitting at a chilly 14 degrees this AM. If we can get through today in Lynchburg below freezing, we may not touch freezing until the weekend.

A fast moving clipper system comes through tonight and could drop a few flurries. Some places- especially north of Covington to Amherst line may see a quick coating. Not a big deal. The problem arises in the fact that this system is a bit close to our Friday system and drives our reinforcing cold air a little further south AND inhibits our storm Friday and may decrease our potential snow.

The "magical" ECMWF- which did decent in our area on last weeks storm but was WAY to far north with the model showing snow into DC when it didn't really make it north of Charlottsville shows a nice 2-4 storm east of the Blue Ridge with maybe up to 5-6 west. The rest of the model data is showing as little as a coating with maybe up to an inch or two.

As of now, I'm splitting the difference and going 1-3 East of the Blue Ridge and 2-4 west, south of Staunton. We should have a better handle on this later tonight and into Thursday.

The cold will continue into early next week before a brief break.

Cold week on tap, maybe some snow LATE week.

The cold is coming. It's not horrible, bitter arctic- but it will be a break from our really mild winter. Highs in the mid to upper 20's and lows in the teens. We are being spared with the cold push not driving down deeper than the mid south, we are not getting in the core of the cold. Still, bundle up, watch your pets if they are outdoor and get that firewood inside!

Don't rule out flurries at certain times either tonight with the cold front or Wednesday with a clipper going to our north. And yes, Granma's cabin in the Mt's will get a little more.

I'm watching a system for sometime in the Friday time frame. Models are all over the place with the furthest track south passing right over us to the most north going about the Mason Dixon line or so.

If it tracks at us-- we get a quick hit of snow that ends as ice.

If it tracks near the Mason Dixon- We get a quick hit of ice that MAY end as rain.


Will update later as needed.

Post storm wrap up

Our storm came off as expected with NOT a bad forecast, but certainly a glaring snow hole from parts of Bedford county into Amherst as the "mega band" formed just a smidge south and missed some areas.

From WSET-- Total snow estimates.

This type of system, this can be expected. I tried to state several times that when the band forms, that there will be winners and losers. The model data was clear there would be a transition of the band as it progessed east and the data was off by maybe 25 miles on the formation. For those who got under it, it was pretty incredible. 

I knew something was up when people in Bedford and Amherst were telling me it wasn't snowing yet and I was getting clocked. This is a snip from the airport weather station. I assume the change over was the same time. We had snow mixing around 4:45 and it was mostly snow by 5. With that assumption, .70 liquid fell as snow. Between the warm ground, marginal air temps, etc it was 3-4 inches for those who were under the heart of the band.  That's a 5-1 ratio. A normal snow has just above 10-1 ratio.  Incredible flake size-- flakes of 2.5 inches across and maybe even 1/8 of an inch think. As a guy who tracks and chases snow, I don't know if I've ever seen flakes that big. The snow had huge divots like a golf ball as it accumulated. My assumption was we'd get  7-8 to 1 ratio on the snow fall. Had that verified we would of have 5 inches or so.

Further, as the band moved south there were a couple lighting strikes, one near Concord and the other down towards Altavista.

So, I'd grade my outlook a B or so. Those big bands are hard to forecast and getting the ratio wrong as well makes less than perfect. I think the overall flavor was pretty good.

Nothing big on the horizon. We will have few pretty cold days next week but nothing extra ordinary.