Happy Monday and welcome to another edition of Beyond The Forecast!
It’s been a busy year for Your Local Weather Authority as myself, Jeff Haniewich, Chris Michaels, and Marshall Downing have had a LOT of storms to track over the past twelve months.
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I’ll take you through a few of those notable weather events in this newsletter. The first big storm happened in January when cold air and moisture combined to dump more than half a foot of snow on many of us.
Roanoke’s official snow total was 8″ on January 16, which was the most the Star City had received in a single day since December 2018. We actually did a really good job forecasting that storm and you can read more about the verification in a previous edition of this newsletter.
Next, let’s talk about the tornadoes that wreaked havoc in 2022. There were five twisters during the spring and summer and they all happened in diverse parts of our forecast area.
The first tornado happened on March 23 in Gladesboro. It was rated an EF-2. One neighbor, Carl Sowers, had this to say about the storm: “They just almost got sucked out of the house. You can see by the damage.”
There were THREE tornadoes in May: one in Fairfield on May 6, then two on May 27. The worst of those was an EF-2 in the Goode/Forest area of Bedford County.
Finally, there was one more tornado in July. That one happened in Grayson County on the 5th and was an EF-1.
It took some time for the tropical Atlantic to wake up this hurricane season. But once it did, we had a couple of remnant tropical systems to deal with.
First, we had the remnants of Hurricane Ian in late September. The storm caused 40,000 local customers to lose power. There was 1-4″ of rain area-wide and wind gusts reached 60 miles per hour in spots.
Then on Veterans Day, we dealt with the remnants of Hurricane Nicole. That storm spawned numerous tornado warnings and dumped 1-3″ of rain.
All told, we got 3-6″ of rain from just two tropical systems this year.
Finally, we had the intense Arctic blast this past weekend, when most of our area spent more than 48 hours below freezing.
It was the coldest Christmas Eve and Day since 1989 in our region and records for cold weather were tied or broken in a few areas.
Without a doubt, 2022 was a memorable year of weather in Southwest and Central Virginia! As a weather team, we pledge to bring you the same great coverage you’ve come to expect as the big storms of 2023 arrive.
Switching gears to this week’s forecast, we’re thawing out from the holiday cold snap as temperatures jump this week. Chris takes you through the temperature roller coaster in our daily forecast article.
You can always get specific forecast details for your zone, whether it’s the Roanoke Valley, Southside, the Highlands, 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 and science content on WSLS.com. Here are a few links from the past week to check out:
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– Justin McKee