60 degrees possible Wednesday — don’t get used to it
Roanoke has topped 60 degrees on 9 days in this warm December, and Wednesday has a shot at being the 10th. It may also very well be the last 60-degree day of 2012. Clouds and showers will likely hold it below 60 on Thursday, and then the passage of an Arctic cold front will slap us with blustery winds from the frozen north on Friday. The HPC weather map for Friday shows a double-barrel low to our north and lots of isobars, or lines of equal pressure, packed together. This is a sign of strong winds, blowing in from the northwest in this case. Some 50+ mph gusts will be possible Friday. A winter storm watch has been issued in several West Virginia counties as these winds lifting over the western slopes of the Appalachians sill squeeze out intermittent snow squalls and snow showers from Thursday night through Saturday, with accumulations of 5-plus inches expected especially in higher elevations and along west-facing ridge slopes. Some snowflakes will get carried in the breeze eastward into the New River Valley on Friday — a dusting is possible for anybody that gets under a heavier snow squall for several minutes — and perhaps even into the Roanoke Valley and points east. Temperatures may not get out of the 30s even at Roanoke on Friday, and several mostly dry days of 40s highs/20s lows will follow, likely into Christmas.
Then there is the matter of the after-Christmas storm. The HPC weather map locates its infancy in Louisiana on Christmas. This one could be a headline-maker for much of the country, though there remains much conjecture on its eventual track. Even a track west of us could lead to some wintry precipitation if cold-air damming develops (as the position of some of the highs to the north on this map suggest would be possible). There remains a chance that blocking features in Canada will force the storm much farther south and east and increase our region’s snow threat. Wherever it goes, Arctic air will pour around its back side toward us late next week, so even if it were to go far west and swing in some milder air, it would last only a day or two. We will continue to watch the models play with it the next few days. Anyone traveling for Christmas should be aware that this storm will have the potential to hamper transportation in a wide swath of the nation for a couple or three days after the holiday.
December 18, 2012 - 11:01 PM
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That spot of “infancy” in NE Louisiana is just west of where I was in late September, in Vicksburg, MISS.
Robin Reed just finished his 11:20 weathercast on “7.” In his summary statement, I thought he was pretty funny. “Weather for the next few days will be warm, wet, cold and windy, then cold, cold, cold right through Christmas.”
By the way — the hampering travel I mention above isn’t just about snow, but wind, rain, maybe severe weather in different parts of the country.
New 0Z GFS is earlier, weaker and warmer with next week’s storm, showing rain already spreading toward us on Christmas Eve.
http://tinyurl.com/bqgx7ng
But it looks wrong on many points. The high in southeast Canada is well positioned for more cold-air damming than the model shows. The low near Newfoundland would likely force the storm farther south. I do understand why some models are popping the storm farther west, though — the big high near Bermuda. That feature isn’t there on many of the Euro runs.
On the whole, though, this GFS run doesn’t pass the sniff test. I’m not buying this as the final answer.
I will offer this to snow fans: I don’t think Dec. 26-28 system is the only one in the pipeline with some potential for snow around here. There may be 1 or 2 more systems to watch near the start of the new year and early in January. I don’t know how much snow or how little we end up with, but the next couple or three weeks will give us some things to watch.
Well, hold the phone on the 0Z GFS — it does put this storm blowing through on Dec. 27.
http://tinyurl.com/ctz27kb
Taken very literally snow is I-77 and west — but storm is much farther east than on previous runs.
Interesting days ahead tracking this one.
http://blueridgeweather.blogspot.com/2012/12/long-time-no-talk.html
Semester is done. Finally had a chance to post a long lengthy update. Ya’ll check it out! Thanks!
46.5* at 6:20 AM.
Chilly 33 as i`m off to work.Supposed to hit mid 50`s up here today.Kevin keep us informed on the upcoming storm.Thanks!
It’s interesting that Robin Reed refers to “cold, cold, cold, right through Christmas”. After a sharp cold donw on Dec. 21-22, the high temps for Dec. 23-25 are actually forecasted to be about 2 degrees warmer than normal, and because December has been so warm, we now refer to normal or a little above, as “cold, cold, cold.” I am restraining any excitement about the possible Dec. 26-27 event, as I just have a feeling it will not be cold enough for an all snow event, and if it’s not a GOFS (Good Ole’ Fashioned Snowstorm), then does it really matter?
47.5*. Actually warmed up about 3* since midnight.
Interesting night…it was down in the 20′s and very frosty before midnight. When I got up for work, it was 46! Had to have been a rapid change before 7am, because when I got outside to my car, there was still a lot of frost on the roof that had not yet melted. Storm system total for rain capped out at 0.28″, after an additional 0.05″ yesterday morning.
Well at least there is something to discuss! I was getting really tired of this ho-hum awfully boring and extremely out of place 60 + degree weather. I’m sorry, and I know that weather does not happen based on what humans want but it just gets a bit ridiculous when that many 60 degree days happen in VA in December.
Hey Doug, why were you in Vicksburg, Mississippi in September? Was it still hot and muggy there? How was the Mississippi River? And did you go to any Civil War battle sites?
Jared: I told you the GFS was farther east in comment No. 6 at 11:51 p.m.
And Euro is farther east with storm, too:
http://raleighwx.americanwx.com/models/euro/00zeuro850mbTSLPUS168.gif
http://raleighwx.americanwx.com/models/euro/00zeuro850mbTSLPUS192.gif
Still not far enough east for a snowstorm here. But is it trending east? Time will tell.
Yeah, Blacksburg Mike, the temps toward Christmas are more what I would call “near-normal cold.” As for whether it will be cold enough to snow mid to late next week, that will entirely be dictated by the track of the low. If it takes a track south and east of us, there is ample Arctic air to the north that will easily get pulled in. If it goes to the west of us, it would depend on whether there is enough cold-air damming or not, and that would probably only last for a while til it got scoured out.
My house was getting rocked by some pretty gusty at 5-6 a.m. Turns out there was strong low-level jet associated with a weak surface trough.
Roanoke Regional gusted as high as 35 I was estimating 40-45 where I live south of Roanoke.
I will be leaving tomorrow for an extended Christmas vacation to Smyth County. Lucky for me, we will be west of I-77, meaning we might get lucky and have a good bit of snow around Christmas. I think it would be lovely!
I spent some time this morning trying to decipher DT’s thoughts on the forecast. Still a bit lost, but he seems to think the latest run is wrong? I’m I interpreting that right Kevin?
68f in DFW…
Thick overcast…fcst high today 80f…if so
will be a record for the date.
Yesterday set record..79F…prev record was 73F
according to local media..
I think DT’s basic idea is this will end up running along or near the East Coast, forced there by the rex block (high sitting north of low) in Canada.
The warmth Joe is in today is setting up this severe storm risk to the east in Ark/La area
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk_1300.gif
57 degrees at 11 a.m. at Roanoke — it should have no problem crossing 60 today, and probably a few degrees more than the NWS-projected 61.
Kinda unusual for the valley to have stronger winds than I do, but 27.3* at 7 AM was the highest I recorded.
Kevin….
Pressure gradient is setting up here at DFW
for tomorrow am-s ops to be possible lengthy delays.
Our runways favor a north/south wind flow…we have 4 runways
north south..and 2 NW-SE…Winds tomorrow am are NW 30 gust 36..
Looks like one runway for takeoff and one to land possibly..
and that is what will dig into our atmosphere that will create your
ARK-LA-TEX scenario. As they (I) say..”The weather outside is frightful
..The landings arent fun in Blytheville.. and just to let you all know,
winds-ll blow , winds-ll blow , winds-ll blow”
Meant 27.3 MPH.
Doug, in response to your question from the previous thread, I understand the ladder that accesses the Burger King’s roof has been removed. In addition other businesses in the area have been alerted to Jared’s weather related rants from the rooftops and have taken similar measures. Needless to say all Greene County residents are hoping for a heavy snow in the next couple of weeks so things will have a chance to settle down.
(Just kidding Jared 
–I share your frustration and am far past ready for a good snow. If we don’t get any snow next week, bring some back with you from Giles)
We had an odd temperature spread this morning. We had a heavy frost(almost looked like it snowed) and I’d guess the temperature was in the upper twenties when I left the house at 6:00. I checked NOAA’s website and the temperature at the airport was in the mid-40s (low was 39 just before midnight). When I got to work (in Charlottesville) it had to be near 50. On a quiet night I can hear the airplanes taxiing around at CHO so we are not that far away from the airport which makes it that much more interesting.
Never got around to askin, but assume we’ll never see you use 5 in your snow meter.
WD: Thought hard about it for Blacksburg this week, settled on 4. Wasn’t convinced upslope would be robust enough to overflow enough for an inch there. Still don’t think an inch is likely there, but if one heavy snow squall parks right over the NWS office on Friday morning, I’m toast on that one.
As I’ve said before, thinking back, I’m almost certain I would not have gone 5 or more on the previous Monday before the Dec. 18-19 snowstorm or the Jan. 29-30 snowstorm in 2009-10. And I probably would have gone 5 or more for both Roanoke and Blacksburg on the Jan. 26 bust of 2011, which was a midweek storm that delivered snow in the tenths of an inch at the official sites when 2-4 was projected.
If it looks by Sunday like next week’s storm has a good chance to be a coastal rather than something inland, I’d probably go 5+ for next week. I will have a hard choice to make if it’s an inland storm with cold air damming possible. An inch of sleet/snow muck before changing to rain would be hard to project 3-5 days ahead.
High wind watch issued for much of SW Virginia.
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/rnk/emer/emer.php
Thank you 12Z Euro Ensembles from Thursday afternoon!
I have to fly. If Kevin has time, maybe he could explain why I’m smiling. I’m sure DT is smiling too.
Will try to explain later tonight
My home station in Bonsack has only several gusts in the low 20s…so Read Mtn must be deflecting the big gusts from me.
The high wind watch is through Saturday afternoon which seems rather long…
Coincidentally, was looking at 12Z Euro Ensembles right before I noticed Quagmire’s comments. Ensembles are a series of model runs on the same data with slightly tweaked variables, so you get 16 versions of the same run. Actually, what I was looking at was the “ensemble mean” which is the average of those models.
http://raleighwx.americanwx.com/models/ecmwfens/12zecmwfens850mbTSLPUS192.gif
The 12Z Euro Ensemble Mean looks a lot like the 0Z Euro with a low tracking west of the Appalachians and then re-forming another low on the East Coast. This has been what I called my “best guess” last night of what would happen. If it verifies, implications for us would depend on how much cold-air damming preceded the inland low. Much cold air could lead to snow or wintry mix eventually changing to rain; little would result in only rain.
I suspect Quagmire is noting this because it is an eastward shift in a lot of the guidance, which generally has backed a little bit westward today after flashing a much more eastward track last night. So it could be part of a trend that would lead to more eastward shifting.
I hope to get a chance to look much closer into why the models are doing what they’re doing sometime tonight.
Blacksburg Mike, I agree with your comment about Robin calling the Saturday through Tuesday timeframe as “cold, cold, cold.” He wasn’t referring to it being very cold, just cold for those 3-4 days. And you are right, Friday will clearly be quite a bit colder than normal, and maybe Saturday by a couple of degrees, but basically the Sat-Tues period, using hia own forecast numbers, will be seasonal. But compared to the highs this month, the 40s will seem cold to most everyone.
According to this morning’s paper, the normals for Roanoke yesterday were 47 and 30. But Kevin has said that the service that the RT uses is sometimes off by a bit. I thought that the normal lows by now for ROA wuld be in the upper 20s.
A familiar name reviews an important weather event of 3 years ago on the Capital Weather Gang blog:
http://tinyurl.com/c5y9fru
Boy, give some of these snow lovers a couple of favorable model runs, and they get happy. Remember my limerick, Quags. Cheer it on, guys and gals.
JFR, thanks very much for your reply earlier today. Where exactly is the BK (Burger King), anyway? On Route 29? And I seriously doubt if “everyone” in Greene County is rooting for a big snowstorm …. I bet plenty of older folks up there were ecstatic about last winter. :>) :>) Anyway, please keep an eye out for the “French”man.
Doug: 47/30 squares for Roanoke’s normal temps this time of year.
The service used for the page 2 weather forecast in the paper sometimes varies quite a bit from the local NWS forecast. It also uses a 7 p.m. to 7 p.m. timeframe for high/low to accommodate our press needs, rather than the midnight to midnight timeframe of the NWS. But the actual climatic information is usually correct.
Omigosh, Kevin, I had completely forgotten that yesterday and today were the 3rd anniversary of “Armageddon.” My street became a disaster area. A friend from northern New Hampshire who stops by here most Decembers on his way to visiting his parents in the Punta Gorda area of Florida came down here on Monday night the 21st. In a Mazda Miyata. I told him that he should probably bypass us, because our street had not been plowed by then. But he said “Griggsy, c’mon, I am from northern New England, I can get there.” He made it to the bottom of our street …. and got stuck. I got him shoveled out and because he had Christmas presents that he did not want to leave in the car, and there were too many of them to carry up our steep hill, he eventually took my advice and “eased on down the road.” Even he was impressed by how much snow we had received.
P.S. Sure enough, our street was plowed the next day, and on Tuesday night he could have made it all the way without problem.
Thanks, KM.
KP, if you are still reading stuff here, THANKS VERY MUCH for your article and posting a link to the snowfall totals around the metro DC area (and a lot further than that). I was able to identify that where I used to live (from 1984-1997) in the Fort Hunt area of Alexandria (actually in extreme eastern Fairfax County) actually got a couple of inches MORE than what I got here in SW ROA County. 20.5 there, 18 here. But the impact on driving was I am sure MUCH WORSE here, because of all our steep and curvy roads in this area compared to eastern Fairfax.
Doug, the BK is at the intersection of Rt 29 and Rt 33. A lot of traffic goes past that area on a daily basis. Therefore all of her citizens(especially the local business owners) want a big snow ASAP so as to appease the Greene County Bumble.
Sorry,, back to your regularly scheduled weather blog.
Speaking of strong winds behind the front, drought, and the aviation interests of Quagmire/Joe, check out this aerial shot of the dust storm at Lubbock, Texas, today.
http://twitpic.com/bnfw2h
Amazing photo. That’s a lot of condensation nuclei flying around.
Kevin I was checking the 8 A.M.temps around Virginia and saw that Danville was 29 but Roanoke was 51 how in the world is that possible as Roanoke is always colder than Danville.Also it was clear skys at both locations.Help me out please!
Interesting observation, Mike. Actually, Danville is sometimes colder than Roanoke in true radiational cooling situations — and that played a role here. Danville had calm winds for several hours in the early morning, so its radiational cooling was pretty strong. Roanoke dipped as low as 42 with light winds in the early morning, until the low-level jet I mentioned in comment 16 hit. Those gusts over 30 mph likely mixed somewhat milder air aloft down to the surface, corrupting whatever radiational cooling was occurring, and also created a downslope effect that warmed the temperatures.
That’s what happened here on da Knob Kevin. S, SW winds kicked in [up in the 20+ mile range] around 6 AM and the temp went up around 3*. Like I said earlier, lower winds than the valley but a rise in temp.
Kevin thanks for the info that makes since.I think i understand your point.That happens up here in Northern Va also.A lot of mornings it will be colder in Manassas than Marshall.Because the reading is coming from Manassas Airport and the elavation is only around 200 feet.But here in Marsahll the elavation is 700 feet.So if i understand correctly the temp drops quicker at the lower elavations on calm nights.But when we have snowstorms in Marshall its always worse than in Manassas as were higher up in elavation and closer to the Blue Ridge Mountains.Most of the time we can have 6-12 inches of snow and Manassas will be all rain or just a couple of inches of snow.Anyway sorry for the long post.
Mike, in cold weather and a snow event, that’s normally is what happens, Higher is more. In calm weather, cold air settles and any warm air tends to rise. That’s why I’m above the frostline.
It was actually Dec 18-19 (Snowmageddon) that made me aware of this blog. I always read the articles but never knew about this. The storms on Jan 29-30 and Feb 6-7 officially cemented my excitement for this blog and ever since I read most posts and often comment. So, aside from the plenitude of snow we received that year, I also have to thank that winter for my familiarity with this blog.