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Beyond The Forecast: Spring 2020 was the wettest on record in Roanoke

(WSLS)

Happy Monday! It’s June 1, which means meteorological summer is here and meteorological spring is in the rearview mirror. Boy was it wet in our area this spring!

Roanoke was our wettest community this spring with 20.52 inches of rain falling at Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport, buoyed by the wettest May on record in the city. This breaks the previous record for wettest spring, which had held for 17 years.

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(WSLS)

It’s also the second wettest year-to-date in Roanoke with 27.86 inches falling so far in 2020. Only 1998 was wetter, when 30.22 inches of rain fell through the first five months of the year.

Blacksburg also had a wet spring, coming in second place in the record books at 18.43 inches of precipitation. Lynchburg and Danville weren’t quite as wet, so their 2020 spring seasons land lower on the list of records.

(WSLS)

Now summer begins and it’s looking hot and wet for southwest and central Virginia. I broke down what we should expect from this summer’s weather in last week’s newsletter.

Switching gears to this week’s forecast, we start the week on a cooler-than-average note with plenty of sunshine today.

Temperatures better suited for our new season will return soon though and many of us will see our first 90-degree day of the year on Wednesday! In most years, we hit that milestone in May in Danville, Roanoke and Lynchburg, so we’re a little behind schedule.

(WSLS)

A front will slowly drift into the area by Thursday and given our summery heat and humidity, there will be enough fuel for daily shots at storms through Saturday. Your Local Weather Authority meteorologist Chris Michaels has a great write-up of what we expect here.

You can always get specific forecast details for your zone, whether it’s the Roanoke Valley, Lynchburg area, the New River Valley, or elsewhere around southwest and central Virginia, anytime at WSLS.com/weather. Know your zone!

In case you missed it, we’re posting great weather content on WSLS.com. Here are a few links from the past week to check out:

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-- Justin McKee