ROANOKE, Va. – As I type this, moisture from a coastal low-pressure system has moved into Southwest and Central Virginia.
The moisture is combining with chilly air to cause a wintry mix to fall in many areas this Thursday morning. Any freezing rain, sleet or snow could cause slick spots to form on roadways.
Here’s a projection of precipitation, cloud cover and temperatures at 9 a.m. You can see the pink and blue mixing in with the yellow and green rain indicators.
As temperatures warm up into midday, we see a transition to just plain old rain for most locations. This should cause any ice on the roads to dissipate, although those roadways could still be wet.
The rain is likely to move out to the northeast during the afternoon and/or evening. We believe temperatures stay above freezing if you have evening plans.
A very strong cold front will be moving in from the west overnight, sending some more precipitation our way.
This may start off briefly as rain, but quickly switch over to light snow as much colder air filters in.
It’s doubtful we see much in the way of snow accumulation, but you could see some flakes if you start your Friday early.
Once the snow stops, we expect temperatures to rapidly fall and winds to become very gusty.
It’s likely that many of us will feel wind chill values below zero by Friday afternoon! If you can avoid being outdoors, we certainly recommend it.
The coldest air of the season lingers into the holiday weekend. In fact, Christmas Eve could be the coldest on record in our region!
We’re forecasting highs in the teens and 20s before Santa comes to town.