Happy New Year! Warm 2012 ends; 2013 begins with light precipitation
UPDATE 12:40 AM, 1/2: I’m simply going to add a link to the Weather Journal column with my 5 picks for top weather events of the year in The Roanoke Times readership area — based on intensity of impact, breadth of impact, unusual nature of the event, meteorological records, newsworthiness, etc. Frankly, though, there was an obvious pick for No. 1 (June 29 derecho) and everything else is arguable below that. Weatherwise, expect a few more showers — maybe even some snowflakes — overnight into Wednesday morning. The next few days appear to be pretty placid, with near-normal temperatures (40s highs, 20s lows) and only a couple of weak disturbances that may trigger a few sprinkles or flurries, Thursday and perhaps over the weekend. We’ll look ahead more in depth in the next blog post sometime Wednesday evening. END UPDATE
Happy New Year, Weather Journal fans! It certainly was a wild 2012. The National Weather Service in Blacksburg has released a list of what its meteorologists voted as the top five weather events in its forecast area for 2012. I’ll have my own list in Wednesday’s newspaper (and I’ll link it here) of the top five events in The Roanoke Times readership area, a much smaller area than the Blacksburg forecast area.
December finished with a 44.7-degree average for Roanoke — the 6th warmest December in the past 101 years, eight-tenths of a degree warmer than last December, and only two-tenths of a degree cooler than November — putting the year at 59.5 degrees. I’m checking with the National Weather Service about where this ranks the year as a whole — this online listing suggests it would be the warmest year on record, but I have another chart provided by the weather service office that shows 1930 as having a 59.6 average. Either way, a very warm year.
The radar has showed splotches of precipitation moving across Southwest Virginia all day on Monday, but very little has reached the surface. Dry air east of the Virginia-West Virginia border and I-77 corridor has been hard to penetrate by the weak overrunning flow of moisture from the west and southwest. Some will eventually get through, as the air slowly saturates, but amounts look to be rather meager. Because there is so much dry air, evaporational cooling may be sufficient for some sleet or snow, but enough milder air is filtering northward, without much of anything to fight it with cold air from the northeast, that most of the precipitation will probably be rain. I say “probably” because we’ve had a couple of precipitation events in the last week that didn’t work as expected due to subtle changes in the atmosphere’s thermal profile. There may be another chance of some frozen precipitation late Tuesday as cold air filters in on the backside, but again, it just appears like amounts will be very light, less than a tenth of an inch of liquid for most, maybe a quarter-inch west of I-77.
We do have a milder pattern taking over for a while over the weekend and next week, as extremely cold air near Hudson Bay will remain wrapped up, for now, by a rapidly spinning area of low pressure. Whether the pattern changes to allow this cold air to surge southward later this month or early in February may be the single biggest determinant in how winter 2012-13 will end up being characterized. Locally, we’re actually off to a milder start in December than our second warmest winter on record a year ago, but nationally, there is more snow cover, and there are far more signs of Arctic air stirring to our north than this time last year. We’ll watch the push and pull of mild and cold the next several days to see if this ends up being a mild repeat or is overtaken by an Arctic surge.
December 31, 2012 - 11:41 PM
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Just checked my thermometer a few minutes ago … last year, ha ha … and it was a surprisingly warm 43*. Took Blondie out, yes he is still alive, and still very wobbly.
HokieTrax, I would start planning on not being able to use the Skyline Drive this coming weekend. Highs only 40 to 42, and that is here in downtown Roanoke. Very little melting at the 2500+ elevation of Skyline, I bet. Now if you could postpone the trip for a few days ….
Happy new year to all fellow bloggers…may you all have your favorite weather in the coming year…
I am still trying to shake the memory of the derecho and its attendant heat wave–a nice winter storm might do the trick. Come on, Arctic air!
Happy New Year (and hopefully a snowy one) to Kevin and the weather bloggers!
I still often reminisce when I first found this blog out midway though January 2010 and that epic winter! Good times for snow lovers!!
Copying this interesting comment just posted on another thread:
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Kevin or others may be able to document/authenticate some weather experiences of my younger years: About 1950, VDoT bringing in huge snowblower machines to clear drifts several feet deep on the old road between Rural Retreat and Cedar Springs, now called Cedar Springs Road; about 1959-60 heavy snows on the same day of the week for 5 or 6 weeks in Grayson County packing up on the roads because VDoT did not have the resources to remove, The Roanoke Times sent Ben Beagle in to do the story; about 1962, probably January or February, Washington County, VA eighteen below zero for couple of days.
Comment by Don Moore — January 1, 2013 @ 8:00 am |Edit This
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I’ve already emailed Don a link to this article I wrote 3 years ago — during our last snowy winter — about the 1959-60 winter.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/238072
I know it’s been discussed, but can someone explain why the Roanoke Valley is such a bowl of dry air?
It depends on the situation, but in many situations, downsloping westerly winds dry up moisture in the Roanoke Valley (and the entire Shenandoah Valley to the north). Surrounded by mountains, rain often tends to be squeezed out by the upslope flow just about any way it comes toward the valley.
This drought situation though isn’t unique to the Roanoke Valley, and is actually worse in counties to the east. It has more to with large-scale, long-term weather patterns than anything specific locally.
Happy New Year bloggers. May the new year bring SNOW!
The first half of January does not sound like it will produce much snow. The latter half??
And then there is the oft wrong Old Farmers Almanac. Let’s jump ahead and see what they have for February. Very cold and very dry. I don’t like that, but then they are rarely right anyway. Here’s exactly what they say for the Appalachians including our area.
FEBRUARY 2013: temperature 24° (6° below avg.); precipitation 0.5″ (2″ below avg.); Feb 1-6: Snow showers, very cold; Feb 7-10: Sunny, seasonable; Feb 11-20: Snow showers, then flurries, cold; Feb 21-28: Snow, then flurries, cold.
And Bryan, I somehow missed seeing your comment back to me on Saturday evening. Thanks for the reply. Kevin followed up your comment with one from his Buck Mountain Apr. days a few years ago, too.
The most startling difference that I can readily remember in my experience here at Long Ridge was one back in August 2002, I am pretty sure. And I was at work when it happened, so I did not witness it. While I was delivering mail on side streets around the 1500-1800 blocks of Peters Creek Road, I remember returning to the route from lunch break and could see unbelievably nasty-looking clouds in SW County approximately where I lived. Similar to the almost black clouds in the Wizard of Oz when Margaret Hamilton spells out “Surrender Dorothy” with her polluting broomstick.
I thought to myself, “Well, I guess we might be getting a decent rainstorm at home.” I saw just lonely raindrops that day, briefly. When I returned to the Melrose Post Office, I noticed that the parking lot had some puddles. But the carrier who had the route that I now have (well south of the post office branch) exclaimed how she got POURED on throughout the early afternoon, in buckets.
So RRA got only a trace that day, I think. If I had been home that day I would have had a hard time believing it, because in our rain gauge we got a colossal 2.75 inches! Nancy — who is NOT one to exaggerate — told me that the young Blondie was going nuts with fear, because of the intense lightning, thunder, and torrential rain and wind. I e-mailed it in to WDBJ7, and got a reply saying thanks. The 6:00 news comes on, but they don’t mention me, but a guy who lived about a half-mile south (steeply uphill) from us who got 3.50 inches!! Kevin will probably now come on and tell that such is how t-storms can dump buckets in one locality and others get zippo nearby. Which is very very true. Unfortunately for me, I have been in the latter category most of the last two summers.
NON-WEATHER but Blondie-Boy update: He is doing better!! The 1% has been happening over the last few days. He can walk again {although incredibly unsteady}, and he finally “Welked” this morning.
THANK ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN PRAYING FOR (and asking about) HIM!!! And please keep up the prayers. He is still very weak and probably won’t live all that much longer, but at least he is no longer on death’s door.
Bryan, I agree with Kevin. It depends on what is happening in a particular period. Back in the summer of 2010, Rick in Wytheville had an incredibly harsh drought, and during the exact worse time of year for it, June and (I think) early July. It basically lasted most of his summer. Meanwhile, RRA got quite a few t-storms, including a whopper, and at my house I got even more than the airport.
But then came the last two summers, and Rick and especially Michael Hoback out west in Washington County got plenty of wetness, while Roanoke city and especially folks like you and me in SW Roanoke County got very little. It sure would be nice if everyone in SW Virginia would get plenty of rainfall throughout 2013. It has happened before, and we are sort of due for another year like that. But it doesn’t mean that it will happen.
Hey. Kevin, how about giving us an update on how dry 2012 was? Especially for Roanoke (about 32 inches total, WAY below normal) and even more so for Lynchburg and Danville. 2012 had to be among the 4 driest years since I moved to Roanoke in late 1997. And I know that 1998 was not a dry one (although a roughly 50-month drought started in June 1998).
Don’t look like I’ll need the snowblade today. Has warmed up to 50* since mornin.
Happy New Year to all. Glad things are going better Doug and prayers keep coming. Tri-Cities Airport ended the year over 5″ above normal for rainfall. Sending all my friends up 81 rain and hopefully Snow for 2013.
Happy New Year fellow weather peeps!! I hope it is a blessed, healthy, happy, prosperous one for all with lots of snow for us snow lovers and gentle summer breezes without a derecho in sight!!
Doug…sending good thoughts to your Blondie boy. I know how it is to watch a sick fur-baby. We just had a cat who was diagnosed with a rare form of aggressive cancer. He’s going through chemo now and seems to be doing fine. Last ultrasound showed no tumors. He will have another one this month and then 3 more chemo treatments. But it was very touch and go for a while. I hope Blondie’s days are filled with goodness and ease – I know they are filled with love!
Doug – I am inclined to believe you on the lack of melting by Saturday. We cannot change the dates since the cabins are reserved a month in advance but we understood that we may have to hike in like we did last year. The good thing is that we are very aware of this, this year. Last year (early Dec) it had only rained here so I didn’t give it any thought and we were in for a surprise at the entrance gate. So we WILL call the weather line this week and early Saturday! The alternative is to take 810 from Crozet to “Browns Cove” and then another smaller road to the boundary of the park, then hike in. If anyone on the blog is familiar with that area, let me know!
The cabins have kitchen stuff. Needing no tent saves about 3 lbs of pack weight for other fun stuff = books, puzzle, cards, knitting, etc. and more food extravagance. There’s a spring there but you still need the water filter for the cooties. Apparently this cabin has a fabulous view for sunsets. My friend is bringing her two doggies so we will have good company with us. They even have their own little packs.
This trip is on the anniversary of the death of my beloved black shadow, ColbyCat. He is still so missed but the memory of him is sweet.
Kevin: with respect to air drying up as it moves downslope from the west (comment 7) isn’t that why so many of our towns and cities are located where they are located, particularly in the eastern US, to take advantage of the “shelter” the mountains provided? I assume 200+ years ago people didn’t really understand the science behind downsloping winds but they knew this side of the mountain was more tenable and livable than that side of the mountain… Or do i assume too much, and I’m way off? BTW-Happy New Year all!
Blow holed again. Everything is going south of us and looks to be much of the same for the next week. Oh well, did get in a bunch of wood in 50* temps and it was dry too, both wood and weather.
Very glad to hear Blondie-Boy is doing better Griggsy! It’s nice to hear good news for a change and prayers from me for Blondie-Boy! Hope everyone has a great NEW YEAR and may Mother Nature be kind and bring the snow fans some SNOW!!!!!!!
Doug – so glad to know your puppy dog is doing better!
Kevin, according to Climate Perspectives (http://www.sercc.com/perspectives), the temperature average for 1912 was 59.6 degrees at Roanoke, making it the warmest year on record. The 2012 warmth was helped out by the intensifying urban heat island around the airport, which as you know, reveals itself at night. 2012 was unquestionably the warmest year for daily minimum temperature, but only the 10th warmest for daily maximum temperature.
Happy New Year Everyone. Please, let it snow soon!
No rain here, either. Even tho’ we need the moisture and I am not nearly the snow-hater I used to be(in which case some snow would be acceptable), I am still very grateful the landscape does not look like 1-1-10, when we had a huge amount of snow on the ground. I don’t think LBM could cope. And it sure looks like there will be no snow here for the next ten days minimum.
Currently 44 with a cool breeze but the good news is that there has been lots of melting. Yahoo!!!
Hokie Trax – have a great time camping. Sounds like you are well prepared. Enjoy!
Been cloudy but no real rain just some drizzle here and there…hope everyone has a blessed year with SNOW!!!!
National Weather Service at Blacksburg has voted its top 5 weather stories of 2012 for its area. Kevin may have either a comment with a link on this or a new thread. But I for one agree with the top two. Derecho number 1, and Sandy number 2 …. FOR OUR AREA!! I got to talk with over a dozen folks (probably more like 30) at least who lost power from the June 29th event and the following 10 days or so of blazing heat and often humidity to boot. Thousands of households just in the Roanoke area alone suffered a great deal. Add in the rest of SW Virginia and the number of households had to be in the tens of thousands, if not in the hundreds of thousands.
Thanks to you three, Michael H, TinaB, and Scott S. For the warm thoughts and wishes for our little boy. He spends the whole day sleeping, except when I wake him to either walk him or feed him. But he is not in pain. Or if he is, he is not vocalizing it. Our first dog did near the end.
Chip:
I think you mean 2012.
For those who don’t know, Chip Konrad, formerly of Roanoke, is director of the Southeast Regional Climate Center, based out of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
The NWS-Blacksburg number for 2012 is 59.5 — I figured it up before it became official based on their monthly numbers, and then they confirmed it today. The discrepancy precedes the period of record for just the current Roanoke Regional Airport site, which your website uses for its calcualtions, back to those years added by the ThreadEx project. 1930 is listed in one chart the weather service provided me as 59.6 degrees, and 1921 at 59.4 degrees, neither of which appear in their Top 10 warmest years list online. I have asked the Blacksburg office’s climatologist about the discrepancy.
Thanks for the added insight on maximum/minimum temperatures during the last year.
Doug: Did you know that Superstorm Sandy resulted in FEWER power outages locally (I’m talking immediate Roanoke-New River Valley vicinity) than either the Feb. 19 snowstorm or last Wednesday’s ice storm?
Not saying I necessarily am ranking either of those events ahead of Sandy — you’ll find out tomorrow — but it makes it interesting when ranking an even strictly locally, not on its widespread U.S. impact and our region being a part of it.
Also — should the derecho and heat wave be considered as one single weather event? Or two?
I like the NWS list for its whole forecast area, which includes much of southeastern West Virginia and into northwestern NC in addition to a big chunk of Southwest, Southside and Western Virginia. I see one event that I would consider missing. It’ll be on my list tomorrow.
And of course my list will be strictly for The Roanoke Times readership area, since it is for the paper, and is much smaller than the NWS-Blacksburg forecast area, and wasn’t as heavily affected by some events and much more affected by others than the area at large.
IMHO..
Sandy probably (or at least nearly)
needs to be in a category of its own,
mostly because of the conditions surrounding it.
The lateness of it in the tropical season
had an awful lot to do with its intensity.
Had the pressure gradient not been so high
giving to the seasonal cool high in the midwest
it would not have been nearly as severe and long lasting.
Its effects broad as they were as much because of the time
of year and everything aligning just right for it to happen
the way it did.
I think it owed at least to 3 things…strength of the system yes
but its broadness and duration were aided by the general stasis
of an early fall pattern on the continental side.
Season , strong high pressure, and an environment conducive
to a largly unhindered tropical system.
No, I did not know that there were fewer power outages from Sandy than two icestorms or snowstorms. My intent was to highlight the fact that Derecho/heat wave (which I consider one event) was definitely a bigger story around here than Sandy. I will not argue if another event is placed ahead of Sandy. I will argue if another story is placed ahead of Derecho.
Hmmmm, I wonder if the event that you will be adding is the February snowstorm? We shall see. Or perhaps the drought, especially from early autumn through late December?
Another TY, this one to HokieTrax. Your comment was not added here until recently, just like my 2:52 PM comment.
Looks like maybe a little snow moving into the NRV?
I just looked at the CPC 6-10 and 8-14 day outlooks for chuckles. For a guy like me who wants wet and warm, both present a dream-come-true appearance. Very likely to be warm and very likely to be wet. But they are silicon-induced fantasy, because today is a holiday and almost certainly they were created by a computer only. We will take a look at what they indicate tomorrow. And of course they could still be quite wrong.
Yes, Brayden, there could be some snow on the backside of the light rain spreading into Southwest Virginia this evening. Probably won’t amount to too much.
Doug: This will give very little away … but I agree that the derecho was the No. 1 event of 2012 locally, and everything else behind it is arguable.
Doug….my 14 year old Golden Retriever “Gracie” sends Blondie her love. So glad you have more time.
Rain finally moved in here. Very light but I can here it pittering on the roof. We sure need it but I’d much rather see snow!
Doug, I am so glad to hear that Blondie is doing better. For the past three years that I have followed this blog, your Blondie has been a part of it. Sending prayers that he will stay comfortable. Happy New Year’s everyone!
Cloudy cool up here today high was 41.Back down to 37 now.I`m calling it a night.Hope everyone had a nice New Years day!
Happy New Year!
Doug…I blogged on QWC about the CPC outlooks earlier & how they were not a Snow Lovers Dream or in your case a Dream come true. I also found some other kind of “Good News” stuff that Mr. Myatt will approve of and may help to verify that winter is not over but taking a break! Glad to hear Blondie Boy is doing better. I’m sort of glad for the break in the weather for this week and next. Can finally get caught up on trimming down some tree branches that were damaged by the Derecho. Boy, I’m lazy.
TYVM, Kevin, about the Derecho. In fact, I would rank it as one of the top 5 weather events in SW Virginia since I moved here late 1997, because of the vast numbers of people affected by it. I guess a couple of others would be the huge snowstorm of December 2009 and the tornado outbreak(s?) of April 2011 (it was 2011, wasn’t it?). I am probably overlooking a few from the early 2000s. Maybe the windstorm of February 2008? But that one may have been more localized here in the Roanoke valley.
How about the rest of you folks? Care to log in with your opinions about big weather events in SW Virginia that happened since January 2000?
EVA!! TYVM. Your message is adorable. I bet Gracie is a sweetheart. Most Goldens are. Does everyone here know that the vast majority of guide dogs for the blind and for paraplegics are Goldens? (Also Black Labs and other Labs) Blondie is mostly Golden (I used to have to tell beer lovers that he is “Mostly Golden,” not “Molson Golden”}. Right now ancient boy is curled up in front of our living room love seat, looking as cute as a button and pretty young, too. But soon I will wake him up for one more trip to the front lawn (in the wet, it has been raining here for a while) and reality sinks in.
And thanks to you also, Meg!
Quags!! Thanks. And you are right about there still being hope for the vast minions on this blog. The polar vortex in eastern Canada has expanded, sending the cold air down through all of New England and NY State. My older sister who lives in central Mass. claims it is going down to zero there by tomorrow dawn.
40 degrees and a steady rain here in Woodlawn tonight. On call and saw my third dog hit by a car (HBC in the terminology) of this New Year’s Day…hope it not a sign of things to come. Give Blondie Boy a hug for me Doug…I’ll give away my age,but two of the biggest weather events I recall happened well before 2000. Hurricane Hugo in 1989,and the Blizzard of 1993. Both of which I was heavily involved in.
Snow Plow just went down my road for the third time tonight – - in Carroll County. It’s 41 degrees and raining……
I just topped this blog post with a short update, including a link to my column on the top 5 weather events of 2012. Will do a more complete update on Wednesday evening.
Watch for storm system to develop
mid to latter part of next week in
the Southcentral Plains..could be interesting
for Midatlantic by next Fri Sat timeframe.
You beat me to it Joe — Jan. 10 or so. May go into the Lakes and reintroduce colder air to the East. Or take a different path.
Kevin,
An issue I’ve asked about previously, and I hope I’m not the only one, but any way we can encourage people to keep their posts focused on the weather, and not what’s happening in their personal lives on this WEATHER journal? I know I can “choose not to read them” as has been suggested before, but I still have to scroll through them. A little banter is fine, but there are posts on here that have absolutely nothing to do with the weather, and that would be more suited to Facebook, email, the phone, etc. Thanks!
As of this morning, the entire length of Skyline Drive is still closed. So my cabin trip is looking more and more like a backpacking trip, which is fine – just shifting into that mentality of packing just the necesities and keeping it all lightweight. But the can of southwest fiesta beans is still coming! The good part is that the weekend looks sunny with temps in the lower 40s and lows in the upper 20s. Last year the lows were in the teens.
Solid list on the top-5 weather events…hard to argue against any of them, and the Derecho was certainly the top event, followed by the drought.
Speaking of that, we finished 2012 just under 4,5″ to the dry side in my neck of the woods, with the lowest year-long precipitation total in the past 4 years, since I started recording data. We did finish December slightly above-normal for precipitation, barely…marking only the 4th month in all of 2012 that went that way.
While I won’t be one of those folks declaring the winter over with the coming warm-up, the pattern doesn’t look terribly favorable for snow or a lot of precipitation at this point, at least in the short-term. I’d be alright with that since I have a lot of outdoor work I need to get done that I had to put off over the holidays due to battling illness, and the weather certainly didn’t help matters much either. But, if we can get a turn back to a cold/wet pattern by mid-month, since the CPC seems to think we’ll be above-normal on temps for the near-term…I think it’ll turn out ok.
Regardless of the temperature side, we could use a good train of precipitation-making storms this winter across the entire southern tier of the US, and practically the entire Rockies/Midwest region too. I shudder to think what spring and summer would be like if we can make solid dents in the drought in the country, given the impacts to agricultural interests and water supplies for a huge swath of the country.
Zach…we haven’t yet seen a VDOT plow in our community…all the plowing was handled by our neighbor, and his pickup truck. He does it just to do it as a friendly gesture, and he’s got family scattered throughout too. Honestly, he does a better job than VDOT most times…he even clears driveways for some folks…at no charge.
We have white ground in Rural Retreat this morning.
Another Lake Cutter one would presume. Looks like things are changing again after this “January Thaw” next week.
New CFS weeklies just came out for the last half of January. Cold shifts to the interior west first then heads east last week of January. Will post this on Blog page at QWC.
Welcome to the topsy turvy winter of 2013. This could be fun later.
I have to stay up late to beat u at much Kevin!!
jy
Rich:
There seems to be no way to please everyone on the topic of what comments are allowed.
The purpose of the blogs is not just transmitting information but fostering “communities” of people interested in a topic. It’s hard to have communities without some occasional personal interaction.
If we are in a live, intense weather situation I will do my best to redirect comments back to the subject at hand (and encourage brevity). At other times, any profane, insulting, abusive or vulgar comments are eliminated. I also derail purely political commentary pretty quickly, because there are several other blogs devoted to that purpose, and any commentary that turns political always turns nasty, in my experience.
I really don’t want to be in the business of using a fine tooth comb on every comment to determine if it is “weather-related” enough or not.
Fair enough, Kevin. I appreciate your response.
I must agree with your opinion Kevin. This blog has a definite sense of community. Along with getting unbiased informative weather, we still have the folks who love their pets, go golfing, fly the skies, yearn for snow, declare winter over, etc. I guess it would be rather boring to read PURELY weather related comments. Kudos on allowing that occasional peek into someones life away from the keyboard.
Matt: I loved your comment and second it! I too enjoy learning about other bloggers lives and interests. We are a community.
You don’t suppose that’s why this blog regularry goes over 100 posts a day do you? Everybody contributes in their own small limited scope of knowledge. Be it daily temps, current conditions or rainfall. It lets us know what the weather is like over a large area. And nobody has to be a meteoroligist to contribute this. Thanks to all.
Kevin, I really liked your list of the top 5 weather events for Timesland. Glad to see that you mentioned the drought, and gave the yearly deficits. According to yesterday’s RT, Roanoke received a paltry 32.91 inches of rain in 2012, with a “normal” or average amount of 41.25 inches (a deficit of a little over 8 inches, as you said). If you have the statistics handy, what other years between 1999 and 2011 had 34 inches or less? I am pretty sure that (at least) one of the years since I moved here was less than 30 inches.
In fact, if you can easily list all the yearly totals for both Roanoke and Blacksburg since 1999 or 2000, I (and perhaps a few other folks?) would be grateful. Or provide a link?
Omigosh!! The CPC multi-day maps were not kidding yesterday. The 6-10 day REALLY looks amazing, even more extreme than yesterday’s. Links. 6-10 day: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/index.php
8-14 day: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/index.php It too is extreme.
I will let the pictures tell the story.
You can find monthly/annual rain totals back to the late 1940s for Roanoke on this site:
http://www.sercc.com/cgi-bin/sercc/cliMAIN.pl?va7285
Scroll on left side to Monthly Precipitation Listings, and under it, click on Monthly Totals
Here’s a Virginia map if you want to click all around the state. Quality of data varies dramatically from site to site.
http://www.sercc.com/climateinfo/historical/historical_va.html
THANKS, KM! 2001, Weather bloggers!!! Get a load of this for an incredibly dry year: for Roanoke, 24.94 inches. March and May 2001 were the only somewhat wet months, with 4.48 and 4.67 inches. 3.13 in July was 3rd “wettest.” From AUG through NOV, a horrendous 5.17 inches for 4 months. Only 1.03 for OCT-NOV combined (eerily similar to 2012). Then 2.48 in DEC, also similar to 2012.
And 2002 was horrible through most of the year, until late September. Total for 2002 was 33.72, but 16 of those inches fell in the last four months (really the last 3 months and the last week of September). That was when El Nino came to the rescue. The 2003 total?? How does 53.58 sound??
From 1998 through 2004, my first 7 years here in ROA, I was wondering what it took to have close to normal rainfall. Only 2000 fit that description, at 39.55. 1998 (but really only the first 5 months of 1998), 2003, and 2004 were wet, and 1999, 2001, and 2002 were dry.
I remember now. The first 5 months of 1998 were sopping because of that monster El Nino year, and late 2002 and 2003 were wet also because of the El Nino then. I was worrying that the only time Roanoke got above normal rainfall was when there was an El Nino ….
Thanks Mr. Griggs. Meaningful data for all.
OK, everybody stop using the term “January Thaw”! It can’t be called that because first you have to received cold weather or snow. LOL it just makes no sense to use that term when December resembled April!
So radar is showing this mass of green coming out of Texas and then going into Georgia – any chance it will head this way?
Personally i enjoy listening to what you fellow bloggers have to say…i have family all over these mountains and was born in laurel fork…its nice to here bout life from others…love this blog keep it going…bring on the snow;)
For once, I agree with you, Jared. I would call it a thaw for Floyd County or other higher elevation areas that got iced up pretty good last week (I drove up on Bent Mountain on Sunday, still pretty wintry looking up there). For the rest of us, it’s just a warmup.
Doppler Carol: That is the disturbance that could have been part of that “late-week” storm we talked about a few days ago. A few flurries or some freezing drizzle is probably about all that will fall around here, more in NC than in SW Va.
Oh boy Jared….have ya heard, it MAY FINALLY get cold the last week of January…WOOHOO…by then, if it even happens, the winter will be half way over and it will probably be another deal like the entire month of December was being put off with the cold and it simply got cooler and seasonable…NO true cold. We did NOT even get in the 20′s as lows but 3 nights…28-23-28 and NO highs the entire month in the 30′s or below. I think the 30th had a high of 40. Our night time lows in November were colder than December with upper 20′s and lower 30′s persistent, BUT naturally of course, very dry air mass and too mild to snow during the days in our immediate area. I have quit looking at Accuweather and DT’s site as they make my heart sink seeing how mild it will be! At least we have had some rain to help with the drought some!
Just re-read my last comment and it sounded sarcastic as Hades, but wasn’t directed at you Kevin or Quagmire. I guess I’m just frustrated with the lack of snow and cold we have received this winter so far. I know it’s early, I sure the heck know it’s nobodies’ fault like people can snap their fingers and produce a big un’, it’s simply the waiting and frustration that just doesn’t materialize and all the chances that miss us! The winter of 2009-2010 was a jackpot, rare bonus, that may not happen again for many a year. Roanoke is generally DRY SLOT CENTRAL it seems and that big ol’ dry windy bowl is always on the rain/snow/muck line unless you get a bonus year of colder upper atmosphere with moisture from the gulf!
This map brings it into perspective — we’re not close to being “dry slot central” in this particular time period. Lots of folks are far drier than us:
http://www.droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Just reading an article for tomorrow’s paper about Nebraska farmers hoping against hope they’ll get blizzards this winter, or their crops are toast come spring.
This winter is eerily similar to last winter in that the cold and snow keeps getting pushed back and now everyone says the last week of January it will finally get cold. DY is acting crazy, one day he says warm for weeks and the next he says cold around the corner! He is the one that said January was going to be very cold and snowy! So Scott, old snow buddy hang in there and in the word’s of Frosty “he will be back again someday” even though I haven’t seen enough snow to make a snowman since winter 09-10. LOL
The main difference this winter to last: Last winter NO ONE in the U.S. was getting much snow and cold. Even parts of Canada were mild with little snow cover. This winter, we have 60 percent snow cover (granted, a lot of it will melt next week) and extreme cold banking in Canada. In the big picture, it’s very different than last winter. That may or may not mean much to what happens outside your window in Virginia … time will tell on that … but the cold and snow aren’t so much “getting pushed back” as hitting someone else other than you.
Coldest high of the winter today only made it up to 35 here.Low this morning was 30.Back down to 29 now.Scott Saunders i know where your coming from I`m a snow lover too,but not as much anymore after the 2009-2100 winter when we had close to 80 inches of snow up here in Northern Fauquier County.I had my share of shoveling in the cold windy conditions.I still say its been much colder this winter than 2011-2012,at least up here in Marshall.Keep the faith Scott winter has just begun.Hopefully u will get snow down your way soon.
Kevin …. major league WAGOT above. I must admit I would probably be right there with them if I were an avid snow lover.
Mr. Brand, thanks for the nice praise. Mark Twain allegedly once said that there are 3 types of lies: Lies; Damned Lies; and Statistics. But give me a list of statistical stuff in an area that I am interested in and I am as happy as a pig in mud. Besides, I think rainfall/rainfall equivalent is pretty straightforward; what it lists is what you/we/they got.
Mike in Marshall, the following may be wrong, but I think your area may be experiencing a bit of the cold snap that is hitting NY State, north-central PA, and New England. You are about 200 miles NNE of Roanoke.