Radar will be lit up in holiday green this Christmas Eve; much colder air to follow

A strong cold front will send a myriad of weather impacts to our area for the holidays

Christmas forecast (Copyright 2020 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

ROANOKE, Va. – We’ve been talking about it all week and our holiday cold front is set to arrive today. We’re under a laundry list of alerts over the next 48 hours, including flash flood watches, potential severe weather and winter weather advisories.

Impacts from today's cold front (Copyright 2020 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

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The radar is already lit up in holiday green with rain beginning this morning. Look for the showers to stay scattered in nature until midday.

The rain will be much more widespread as we head into the afternoon and evening. There could be enough instability in Southside for a few severe storms to develop. The primary threat would be damaging wind gusts, but a tornado can’t be ruled out.

Future Tracker Thursday 3 p.m. (Copyright 2020 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

Once the front passes over our area, much colder air will filter in behind it. It appears the precipitation will stick around long enough for us to get a burst of snow tonight. The best chances for snow accumulation will be west of the Parkway.

Future Tracker Friday 12 a.m. (Copyright 2020 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

It is setting up to be one of the coldest Christmases on record in our area. Look for highs to range from the low 20s to mid 30s.

Here’s a look at the Christmas Day coldest high records and where each of our climate sites could rank if our forecast verifies.

Coldest Christmases and where this year could rank (Copyright 2020 by WSLS 10 - All rights reserved.)

We here at Your Local Weather Authority hope everyone across Southwest and Central Virginia has a Merry Christmas!


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