ROANOKE, Va. – Winter Weather alerts will go into effect Thursday afternoon through Friday morning for parts of the region.

Prior to that, we’ll see temperatures rise Wednesday due to a breeze from the south. Highs mostly reach 45 to 50°, which will help melt some of the snow from our previous storm.

That same flow out of the south will eventually push enough moisture our way, in tandem with a quick-moving storm system from the west.

Projected Start Times

While rain/sleet may fall briefly, it appears as though the main type of precipitation will be snow.

This will likely have an impact on the evening commute for areas like the New River Valley, Roanoke Valley and Highlands. The farther east you go, the slightly later snow starts.

It’s out of the entire viewing area by 2-3 a.m. Friday, so any given location sees wintry weather for about a 4 to 6 hour time frame. However, slick and snow-covered roads will be an issue into Friday morning.

Projected Snow Totals

Cold air is in place. Anything that falls will stick more quickly. Totals of 2-4″ (isolated higher) will be in parts of the New River Valley and Highlands. Totals of 1-3″ will be in the Roanoke Valley and Lynchburg area. Totals of 0-1″ look more likely in parts of Southside.

Arctic Air to Follow

Following the departure of this storm system, Arctic air rides in on a gusty wind. This sends wind chills down into the single digits and teens first thing Friday morning. Friday afternoons temperatures will be in the 20s and 30s.

We drop into the teens (some single digits in the mountains) by Saturday morning, but temperatures rise into the 40s Sunday afternoon. That’s as another storm system comes in.

While precipitation may briefly start as freezing rain near and north of I-64, the main precipitation type will be just rain Sunday afternoon and evening.

We see another blast of cold air into early next week.

Keep tabs on the forecast when we’re not on air by downloading our weather app.