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A new cold front is pushing a band of precipitation ahead of it. Temperatures in the Roanoke area have warmed enough that what falls will almost certainly be rain, but there is a good indication that much of this rain will dry up crossing the mountains and we'll only get light amounts. Further northwest, in the mountains of West Virginia, yet more snow is expected, maybe a few inches. This cold front will bring a brief reinforcement to the cold air on Saturday, but a warming trend will take hold Sunday and Monday.

Yes, there is a much bigger show on the horizon Tuesday and Wednesday, possibly one of the most powerful low pressure systems to move near or through our regions in years. A lot remains to be seen on the details, but for now, it definitely looks more like a rain maker than anything wintry. I'll be taking a closer look at this over the weekend.

Blacksburg set a record low this morning and Roanoke tied a record low, but it was the easiest day of the year to do so.

With Feb. 29 only showing up every 4 years, there are a lot fewer opportunites for record temperatures to be set on this date than any other date on the calendar.

Blacksburg's low of 15 beat out the previous leap day record of 15 set in 1984, while Roanoke's low of 22 tied the Feb. 29 record set in 1980. Most record lows for this time of year run in the single digits for Blacksburg and in the teens for Roanoke.

Within the National Weather Service-Blacksburg office's forecast area that includes much of Southwest and Southside Virginia plus a few counties in southeast West Virginia and northwest North Carolina, Quinwood, W.Va., in western Greenbrier County is the typical winner in an upslope snow event. This time was no different coming in with 15 inches of snow from the intermittent snow showers and squalls that were squeezed out as northwest winds climbed the mountains the last couple of days. Below, in the extended entry, is a National Weather Service list recapping snowfall amounts from the snows of the last couple of days. In the Roanoke Valley, we just got a trace on a few snow showers Wednesday.

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It always amazes me that these little speckles on radar can produce such heavy snow reports in a few localized areas. Western Greenbrier County in eastern West Virginia has seen up to 10 inches of snow today from persistent snow squalls and showers being squeezed out by the westerly winds blowing up the slopes of the mountains. The Roanoke Valley has seen off and on flurries today, with somewhat more substantial snow in a few higher elevation spots to our south and southwest.

The snow showers and flurries will gradually dwindle overnight, and we'll be left with a cold but sunny Thursday before a gradual warmup through the weekend.

The marathon upslope snow shower episode that is expected to deal up to a foot of snow in eastern West Virginia is off to a slow start tonight, but should pick up overnight and into Wednesday as strong northwest winds carry Great Lakes moisture up the western side of the mountains. On this side of the Appalachian spine, we may see a few flakes blowing through the air from time to time in the blustery breezes, but probably no significant accumulation. I wouldn't rule out a white ground in parts of the New River Valley, but even most places there should escape significant accumulation.

Latest advisories and warnings from National Weather Service-Blacksburg

Latest National Weather Service-Blacksburg radar

After a cold front pushes through some showers today, strong northwest winds will kick in as a low pressure system develops in the Northeast. This is a familiar prescription for upslope snow showers, and this time, they will likely continue for so long that some of the higher elevation areas in eastern West Virginia could get 6 or more inches of snow. That's why winter storm watches were issued for a few counties over that way on Monday to cover the time from 6 p.m. tonight until 6 a.m. Thursday. There will be enough bleed-over from the upslope snows that some places in the New River Valley could get a dusting to an inch, and I wouldn't even be surprised to see a couple of the more vigorous snow showers amid off and on flurries in the Roanoke Valley briefly whiten the ground in a few places. Not a big snowstorm for the New River and Roanoke valleys, but enough snowflakes in the air to remind us that it's still winter.

The latest from the National Weather Service in Blacksburg

Some of you might have seen a few wet snowflakes during the evening and overnight. That was a passing weak disturbance that had marginally cold air to work with.

The next couple of days will be pretty mild with temperatures in the 50s, maybe pushing 60. Rain will be moving in on Tuesday as the strong low pressure system takes shape to our west and moves into the Ohio Valley.

Wednesday and Thursday will turn blustery and cold as this system moves by, dragging a cold front through, then as the low re-forms off the Atlantic coast of New England. We'll get a couple of days of wintry winds and probably quite a few snow showers, the kind that accumulate in the mountains of West Virginia but just make things seem a little more wintry over on this side of the Appalachian spine.

So the temperatures will go up, then down, this week, before steadily climbing again next weekend.

A salvo of disturbances in two separate branches of the jet stream moving into cold air forced south by high pressure in Canada failed to bring anything more than sprinkles and a few ice pellets to Southwest Virginia. So what can be next in this sickly warped winter of 2007-08? This swirl of clouds off the Pacific coast is the answer. (There are 2 actually, but I'm talking about the bigger one farther offshore). It will crash on shore in northern California late in the weekend or early next week, and the atmospheric energy from it will get caught in the jet stream and cross the country. The jet stream will be dipping pretty far south, so it's likely this thing will dip south and then northeast and turn into a strong low pressure system triggering a major winter storm somewhere. Right now, that somewhere appears likely to be the same somewhere that has had almost all the winter snowfall this year: the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region. The low may sweep northeast very near the Appalachian chain late in the week, bringing windy rain our way. It's possible the low will transfer its energy to a second low off the New England coast. If it does, New England will get a big snowstorm while we get sideways snow flurries on brisk northwest winds. It's all a week out, and things could change with the details of the forecast -- the last 48 hours proved that. But, in the large-scale pattern, it looks as if March will roar in like a lion, or maybe a polar bear, with colder than normal weather expected over the next 6-10 days, as shown on this map from the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.

A couple of weak showers have moved through the Roanoke Valley with temperatures just above freezing, and more showers are on the way from the west, though they are diminishing somewhat in intensity and areal coverage. While we can't rule out a few icy spots on bridges and overpasses this afternoon, it would appear that we have essentially dodged this winter weather threat in most of Southwest Virginia.

It is now a race between the last piece of this very broken storm system, currently moving across Tennessee and Kentucky (click here for national and regional radar views), and whether surface temperatures can warm above freezing before it gets here. We will probably see some rain as that last spoke in the wheel moves through later this morning or early in the afternoon. Temperatures are well above freezing in the atmosphere above the surface level, so anything reaching the surface will almost certainly be liquid. It's just a matter of whether temperatures at ground level will be cold enough to allow any ice to build once that precipitation arrives later today. The National Weather Service in Blacksburg is hanging on to a winter weather advisory until noon just in case the last wave slaps us with a little ice.