Saturday, January 19, 2008

Snow? Region could wake up Sunday to as much as 4 inches of white stuff

Readers in colder, snowier climates will no doubt laugh that such an event would merit a headline in the local newspaper. However, southeastern Virginia rarely gets snow and when it does, you would think that we had been hit by a blizzard. People do NOT know how to drive in snow and the local cities only have equipment to tend to the main roads and highways. Thus, back in subdivisions, neighborhoods, and rural areas, the stuff stays on the streets until it melts away naturally, often turning to glare ice before going away. Hence, driving a Jeep with 4 wheel drive has value besides being able to drive on the beach in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Here's a bit of our forecast:
As much as 4 inches of snow could be on the ground by Sunday in metropolitan areas, with even more in interior sections of Hampton Roads and northeastern North Carolina. “This certainly is the best shot at snowfall of this magnitude in some time,” said Bill Sammler, the warning coordination specialist at the National Weather Service office in Wakefield.

“I would say the chances are close to 50/50 and they may actually be higher than that,” he said Friday. The Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina beginning this afternoon.
Overnight, snow should cover the region down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. “The Norfolk area – in fact, most of Hampton Roads going into interior northeast North Carolina – is going to be in the area that gets the heaviest total precipitation,” Sammler said. The last time the region received 4 inches or more of snow was on the day after Christmas in 2004. Isle of Wight and Southampton counties got as much as a foot.

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