ROANOKE, Va. – To the dismay of snow lovers, the winter of 2022-2023 was virtually non-existent. Those same snow lovers often bring up December 9, 2018 — and with good reason. It was a memorable storm.
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This is one of those storms you talk about — even five years later. Once it started snowing, it seemed like it wasn’t going to stop.
December, especially in the past decade, hasn’t given us much to write home about in regard to snow.
This was obviously different, but it was textbook for a big snowstorm in our part of the world.
High pressure sat just to our north, keeping cold air locked in at all levels of the atmosphere.
(Especially recently, that’s been rare. It seems we often get a layer of warm air above to wreck the snow party, changing precipitation to a mix of sleet, freezing rain and rain.)
At the same time, there was a slow-moving storm system riding along the Gulf Coast and the East Coast.
The two combined for what would be a day-long snowstorm. Most of our area reported more than a foot of snow in less than 24 hours.
For Roanoke and Danville, it was the third-snowiest day on record. For Lynchburg, it was the ninth.