A Few Snow Flurries Possible Tonight

The best location will be across the northern half of Virginia as a shortwave trough (indicated by the red and orange colors in the graphic above) moves through the region. Models have not handled the precipitation with this feature very well and there is currently a lot more on radar (shown below) than expected. The air mass is still extremely dry, and the mountains will hurt a little as well, but a few flurries will still be possible north of Richmond. Nothing to write home about, but it's the only shot we have to see a flake or two before temps in the 60s return to the area. -Zach

Coldest morning of this Winter Wednesday morning

Wednesday morning's low temperatures were the coldest of this Winter season thus far, and will likely remain the coldest for the near-future. Here are a selection of low temperatures reported this morning in central Virginia:

As bitterly cold as it was this morning, it still wasn't close to record cold low temperatures for today's date. The record low for Richmond International Airport for January 4th is -1 degree from 1918. The average low temperature is 28 degrees, which means we were about ten degrees colder-than-average across all of central Virginia.

The upper-level trough that has been in our region for the past couple of days providing this cold weather, dry air, and blustery winds will begin moving away from us today. By tomorrow, morning lows will remain in the mid to upper 20s with afternoon highs back to average in the upper 40s and low 50s.

Our next blast of cold air may arrive mid-month, but as of right now, there's still no strong signal for our first significant winter precipitation event in the next couple of weeks. The system that will bring rain to Virginia this Sunday should exit to our northeast before it pulls in cold air deep enough to change the rain over to snow.

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--Carrie
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Coldest Night So Far This Season

And yes, the winter season is still young, but overnight lows in the teens across the majority of the state will easily eclipse our previous coldest night of 25 degrees in Richmond on December 29th. The wind speed will decrease significantly as the night wears on, but even a 3 mph wind at a temperature of 19 degrees will result in a wind chill of 15 degrees. We'll have one more breezy and cold day on Wednesday before a nice warm-up heading into the weekend. A few central Virginians were treated to snow showers this afternoon, but any significant wintry weather might still be quite a stretch away. There are two chances that I see over the next 10 days for wintry weather in and around metro Richmond, and they are both associated with similarly structured storm systems. The big question for each of these systems will be whether or not the air mass will be cold enough to support snow. Most of the rain will be gone by the time the cold air moves in during the first event this Sunday, with still a lot of uncertainty with the second system slated to arrive next Thursday the 12th. Neither system looks impressive at this point. I'll keep one eye on the models tonight, and the other on the Hokies down in New Orleans. Hopefully they can put Michigan away and spread a little warmth north. I'll have another update tomorrow. -Zach