Chilly for the rest of the holiday weekend with wind, mountain snow at times

Keep the warm coats handy through Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Holiday weekend planner (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

ROANOKE, Va. – Happy Sunday! Snow squalls and showers pushed through the area at times on Saturday, coating some of us in white to kick off the long holiday weekend. We have a final look at snowfall totals.

It appears most locations west of the Blue Ridge got 0-1″. Roanoke and Lynchburg got a trace of snow.

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Saturday's snow totals (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

The only areas that will see snow over the next three days will be the western mountains. Occasional shots of the white stuff will be possible there. Here’s a projection of totals from the European (ECMWF) model.

Mountain snow totals through Tuesday (Euro model) (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

After a cold and breezy start this morning, look for the wind to let up and temperatures recovering to typical mid-January levels by afternoon. We’ll also have partly to mostly cloudy skies on this middle day of the holiday weekend.

Zone high temperature forecast for Sunday (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

We’ll see the wind pick up again on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It could gust above 30 miles per hour at times, especially west of the Parkway.

Temperatures start slightly below freezing, then warm to levels five degrees cooler than today. When you factor in the wind, we may only peak in the low 30s for the wind chill.

MLK Day hourly planner (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

We continue to watch the late part of the work week for a potential storm system. I will say that my confidence in that system happening is a little lower this morning, thanks to some shifts in the model guidance.

We’ve kept a small wintry mix chance in the forecast for Thursday and a small shower chance for Friday. Those chances may go down more if the models continue to snub us for precipitation.

What we're tracking Thursday 8 a.m. (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

I know many of you are looking for the first “big” snow storm of the season.

The pattern for late January is looking more conducive for such a storm to come together, as the Climate Prediction Center is calling for cooler-than-average temperatures as well as above-average precipitation.

Late January temperature and precipitation outlook (Copyright 2021 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

While that doesn’t mean a storm will necessarily form and dump snow on us, this is the kind of pattern we need for one to occur. Stay tuned!


About the Author:

Justin McKee presents the weather forecast on 10 News Saturday and Sunday mornings from 6 to 8 a.m. He also fills in for other meteorologists during the week.