A winter recap on the eve of my winter forecast..

First, let's start by looking back at one of the snowiest winter's of all time in SWVA.

It started December 5th, when a low pressure system shot up the coast, dropping 3-6" accross the New River Valley and NW NC Mountains.

The biggest storm since 1996 occured two weeks later, when a low pressure system tracked through Alabama, Georgia, SC, and eventually off the coast of NC.  This was a slow mover, with cold air in place, it was nearly all snow.

Totals ranged from 10-20" accross SWVA and NWNC, with 14" at my house in Woodlawn, and as much as 26" in the Shenandoah Mountains.

January was mainly dry, until the last two days of the month, when a storm tracked straight accross the South.  With an artic high pressure to the north, overunning of two vastly different air masses occured, and it once again, dumped on us.  Temperatures struggled to hit 20 for 3 days, as 12" fell on the 31st, then 3" over the next two days.  This was a historic storm for many in Eastern Virginia, with places south of Richmond picking up 15-20" of snow.

While not the best map, you can see how the area of white expands over SE Virginia, and over the SW Blue Ridge Mountains.

A week later, February 6th, an odd setup for snow occured, a low pressure tracked west of the Appalachian mountains.  In most winter this would be a set up for rain, but with Cold air entrenched on the Eastern slopes of the Appalchians, a solid 12-24" fell from Boone, NC up through SWVA into DC.  For many in DC this became one of the largest snowfalls ever, with totals well over 2 feet in many places.

A week later, another storm with the same setup dropped  lesser ammounts, on the order of 3-6" accross SWVA.

Finally, to cap it off, we had a shot of elevation dependant snow on March 5th-6th, dropping around 6-8" in the higher elevations of Grayson, Carroll, and Floyd counties.


So, many of you are asking, will this winter rival that winter?  My answer, is no, it will not even come close.  Last winter was a winter where we saw twice our average snowfall, that happens about once every 10 years.  It certainly looks like that will not occur this year.  So what will happen?

Come back later to find out.