ROANOKE, Va. – Today shapes up to be a nice, mild fall day before some noticeably cooler air arrives this weekend.
The morning starts on the cool side with lows in the 40s and 50s, but today’s sunshine easily takes highs into the 70s. Some places in Southside even reach 80.
Skies are mostly clear during the day. There is enough moisture that a few stray, spotty showers could develop in the afternoon. Anything that does develop is very short-lived: football games tonight will go ahead without any issue.
A cold front headed our way means a big temperature drop from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning.
The front is strong in terms of temperatures: most of us drop more than 10 degrees from Friday’s highs to what we see Saturday.
Despite the temperature change much of our weather remains relatively unchanged. Skies stay sunny and winds mostly stay calm through the weekend and into next week.
There is a bit of a breeze late Friday and early Saturday as the front moves through. When temperatures are below 50 degrees that wind makes it feel an extra degree or two cooler.
High pressure behind the front keeps us particularly dry. You’ll want a jacket in the mornings, but you don’t need an extra layer to keep the rain away.
For the last few months whenever we had sunny weather our pollen count would jump up. The pollen count is low both before and after the front so allergy sufferers get a bit of a break.
The post-frontal cooldown means we feel more like Halloween for this first part of October. Temperatures stay below average into the middle of next week.
The Highlands and New River Valley start seeing frost around this time of year and given how cool we are behind the front some morning frost is likely. Winds are a bit high early on Saturday for that frost to form given that the front is still moving through, but Sunday and Monday have better chances.
With consistent sunshine and high pressure moving to our east warmer temperatures arrive by the start of the work week.