ROANOKE, Va. – Good news upfront: none of our days ahead are nearly as stormy as we were earlier in the week. Friday’s showers are very limited with most of us staying dry. Saturday is more soggy, but storms stay below a severe threshold.
Saturday starts off dry. The incoming cold front drives showers around lunchtime, but peak rainfall comes between 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM.
Showers start on western slopes and spread east consistently through the afternoon. Heavier rain takes time to develop leaving the Highlands and NRV with the lowest rain totals.
The cold front passes through in the mid-afternoon. The front itself helps lift storms into the air over the next few hours.
Isolated downpours and some rumbles of thunder are the most intense features we notice with this system. Storms are most prevalent south of US-460.
By 9:00 PM there are few showers left. We spend most of the night dry and calm.
Some spots in the NRV get more than a quarter-inch of rain, but the heaviest rain totals are likely to be closer to Bedford and Smith Mountain Lake.
Warm air comes in just ahead of the cold front keeping Saturday’s temperatures a few degrees warmer than Friday’s.
We hold on to the heat we gain through the week ahead. The cold front has a minimal impact on temperatures which helps us stay close to average.
Showers are rare over the week ahead, and even looking towards the end of the month most of the region stays dry.
That drier air helps keep our storm chances low for a few days even though we are in the stormy stretch of the year.