Freeze Warning Saturday Morning

A Freeze Warning (light blue counties) will be in effect Saturday morning from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. for parts of Central and Eastern Virginia. Counties to the west of the warned area have already experienced their first freeze of the season, often on multiple days. But this may be the first light freeze of the season for the warned counties Saturday.

The coldest temperature at RIC so far this season has been 35 degrees, which occurred on October 20. Temperatures in the Richmond metro should fall to right around the freezing mark around sunrise Saturday. High pressure currently over Kentucky and Tennesee Friday morning will continue to head east toward Virginia today. Northwest winds will also continue into Central Virginia Friday, reinforcing the cooler, drier airmass in the region. With clear skies, light winds, and drier air in place with this surface high pressure, overnight radiational cooling should be effective enough to allow most of Central Virginia to experience a widespread frost and light freeze.

Will Ida Affect Central Virginia?

Ida has weakened from a category 1 hurricane to a minimal tropical storm over eastern Nicaragua, and is producing flooding rainfall with the potential for dangerous mudslides. Ida will move northward tonight into eastern Honduras and will probably weaken to a tropical depression by Friday morning. There is the potential for Ida to emerge into the western Caribbean on Saturday and to once again become a tropical storm. Extended forecast models indicate a continued motion to the north over the next several days, bringing the remnants of Ida into the Gulf of Mexico early next week. The moisture might then be pulled into a storm system moving across the central U.S. and into Virginia. Our chance of rain next Tuesday night would be from a combination of lift from the upper-level system and moisture from Ida, a system that is currently all the way down in Nicaragua.

Hurricane Ida Inland Over Nicaragua

Hurricane Ida's center has moved inland over east-central Nicaragua this morning after making landfall near Tasbapauni, Nicaragua. Ida maintains maximum sustained wind speeds of 75 mph, which keeps the storm at Category One status for now. Ida should weaken, though, to a Tropical Storm later today while it interacts with the land in Nicaragua and Honduras. If Ida can survive this landmass interaction the next couple of days, it should restrengthen to a Tropical Storm in the western Caribbean on its way into the Gulf of Mexico.

However, there is still great uncertainty with regards to any possible impacts in the United States from Ida.