Lots of wet ... but a chance of white?Posted Dec20, 2006 at 07:19 PM
I will hold out one carrot of hope for all the snow lovers. A low pressure system is expected to form in the Gulf late this weekend and move northeast. If the amount of cold air available were anywhere close to what is typical, this would be a major winter storm threat. It's NOT. Not by a long shot. But we are in late December, so there is some chance that this low might draw on enough cold air high in the atmosphere, transporting it to the surface with the precipitation, or even pull down enough marginally cold air from Canada for some snow Christmas afternoon and Christmas night. The National Weather Service in Blacksburg currently gives us a 40 percent chance of snow on Monday night, Roanoke's highest snow probability so far this season. There are many, many problems with this scenario beginning with the lack of cold air. The track of the low may also end up being too far west, also, keeping us on the mild side of the low. Every now and then, one of these marginal storms unloads a heavy dump of wet snow in a narrow band, so it's certainly worth keeping an eye on. Numerous computer models have been showing some version of this storm, with slightly varied strength and movement, over several computer runs for a few days now. For Roanoke, at this point, I would expect yet more rain on Christmas with maybe a tiny bit of sleet or snow at the end. Higher elevations to our west stand a better chance of eeking a white Christmas out of a dismal pattern for winter weather. A chilly, wet Christmas will please almost no one. |
About this blog
Kevin Myatt works on the copy desk for The Roanoke Times and is its principal weather geek, writing a weekly weather column and advising the newsroom on weather topics. He helps guide students on a storm chasing trip to the central U.S. each May and was an editor for "Hurricanes and the Middle Atlantic States." .....Advertisement.....
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