StormTracker 8: Winter Storm Through Monday Evening
Jan 05, 2025
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) --What is shaping up to be out most impactful winter storm in multiple years over the area will affect us from now through Monday evening.
We have Winter Storm WARNINGS and Winter Weather ADVISORIES for all but parts of Hampton Roads. The greater impacts of the storm will be in the pink areas, while lesser impacts to the south.
As advertised, this storm will have a variety of precipitation types to deal with. We will start off with snow for all. Then we will mix over to sleet, some freezing rain, some rain, and back to snow.
This is all location dependent, so you need to look at the map. The greatest changeover with be in the areas that match up with the Winter Weather Advisory. That is where your snow will be the least and the rain will be the greatest. Which means most of the wintry stuff will wash away from you.
As you go to the north, the amount of rain will decrease, and the amount of snow will be on the increase. Once you get to the north of a Charlottesville to Fredericksburg line, you are going to be mainly snow.
When this is all said and down, we will have a large variety of accumulations in the area. Look at the map and where you live.
Here in the Metro Richmond area, due to the elevation change from one side of town to the other, you will have a split. For SIMPLICITY, let’s use US-360 which runs SW to NE through the area. On the east side of it, you will be in a 2”-5” band (it won’t match the map exactly since the map is broader”. West of that line, you are in a 3”-6” band.
Once you get northwest of the metro (but put far western and northwestern Hanover in there) you’re getting up into the 4” to 8” bands.
It plays out tonight with snow through much of the evening for us, and then making and changeover to sleet are we head after midnight.
Tomorrow, we have sleet and freezing rain in the morning, changing over to some rain by late morning, mainly south of I-64. In the afternoon it may taper for a while into drizzle.
As the storm reforms off the coastline, we are going to see a band of light snow on the backside of the system. That ends by midnight.
The mid part of the week will be cold over us, and with snow on the ground for many of you we will see morning lows possibly in the single digits for several days. That means any melting on roads will refreeze in a hurry.
At the end of the week, the long range models indicate a chance of snow on Friday night and Saturday AM. We need to get through this one first!