Seasonably cold, calm prior to late week snow potential

Other than some wind and mountain snow late Tuesday, the next system to watch comes Thursday night and Friday

What we're tracking by Friday, 1/8/2021

ROANOKE, Va. – Coming off a weekend that felt like half spring and half winter, the weather pattern evens out a bit for much of this week.

We expect a partly to mostly cloudy sky and temperatures in the 40s for most of the area Monday. Some spots east of the Parkway will touch 50°, as that’s where we expect a little more sun.

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High temperature forecast for Monday, 1/4/2021

Temperatures Tuesday will be pretty similar. A weak system passing through later in the day into Wednesday, however, will kick up the wind a bit and bring light snow to the favored west-facing slopes.

Tuesday's wind speed and wind gust forecast

Even Wednesday and Thursday’s temperatures will be very similar, but things take a brief turn come Friday. This comes with our next storm system of interest.

High temperature forecast from 1/4 to 1/8/2021

A storm system will come out of the Plains by Thursday, picking up some moisture and causing rising motion in the atmosphere. These are the processes needed for precipitation to form.

Low pressure moves out of the Plains on Thursday

At the same time, a marginally cold airmass will be around.

Marginally cold air present in the eastern U.S. Thursday and Friday

As the two collide, snow will be a possibility Thursday night and Friday of this week. This all depends, however, on the storm’s exact track, how much cold air will be around and the time of day at which the storm passes through.

Snow is possible Thursday night into Friday, depending on the track of our storm and how cold we are

This system comes onshore along the West Coast Monday night into Tuesday, at which point weather balloons will be launched into it. These balloons routinely collect data that’s fed into forecast models, making them more accurate in the coming days.

How weather balloons work

For instance, one forecast model from Sunday put 9″ of snow in Roanoke Friday. As of Monday morning, it’s putting 1″ of snow in Roanoke by Friday. Expect these wobbles and changes for now. We’ll continue to keep you posted on air, online, on social media and on our app.


About the Author:

Meteorologist Chris Michaels is an American Meteorological Society (AMS) Certified Broadcaster, forecasting weather conditions in southwest Virginia on WSLS 10 News from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. weekdays on Virginia Today.