ROANOKE, Va. – We aren’t the only part of the country seeing storms today, but the warm front causing our wet weather keeps us busy enough to focus on the mid-Atlantic. The Storm Prediction Center has much of North Carolina, northern South Carolina, and a handful of counties in southern Virginia in a Level 1 risk today.
This front brought showers before dawn, and through the morning they are rather consistent.
By 10:00 AM the showers begin to ease up with a dry stretch over lunchtime into the early afternoon.
The warm front sends more moisture our way by 2:00 PM bringing showers back with some flashes of lightning. The main severe weather takes a bit longer to arrive.
Between 5:00 PM and 10:00 PM we have our best chance for storms. Southside is the zone with the best chance of getting high winds or hail, but some storms in the Lynchburg and NRV zones are possible.
Isolated showers last through the night into Saturday morning, but after midnight the rain turns to a drizzle.
High wind gusts and damaging hail are the main severe threats from Friday’s storms. Gusts to 40 mph will blow around unsecured objects, and isolated towns get hail that can grow large enough to cause some dents.
The flood and tornado risk are rather low for these storms. The severe threats stay low for the weekend.
With most of our storms coming to Southside it follows that our highest rain totals are in that zone. More than half an inch is possible there with lower amounts as you go north. North of US-460 rain totals only amount to one or two tenths of an inch.
Cloud cover keeps our temperatures consistent across the area. We started the day in the mid-50s and warm to around 70 without much variation.
Saturday’s showers are limited to what lasts from this system into Saturday morning. Sunday brings a cold front from the west that causes more of its own weather. Storms are concentrated further south Sunday.
Saturday puts another high storm chance in the center of the country. Springtime storms don’t let up anytime soon for Arkansas and Missouri.
The cold front Sunday brings enough energy to put is in a Level 1 risk which is the same severe risk we have Friday.
Despite all of the rain and wind pollen counts stay high. Sunday is a bit better for allergy sufferers, but at this time of year there just isn’t much nature can do to keep pollen down.