Greenfield-Afton, Virginia
Update: 12:30 PM EST
Look for scattered periods of sleet and freezing rain to continue affecting parts of Nelson and Central Virginia throughout the afternoon. Warmer air is starting to advance toward Nelson County and may briefly get temps above the freezing mark. I’d say the prospects for any snow accumulation are pretty slim, but we still have the potential for icing later this evening into the night. After midnight, temps may actually begin rising. The NWS Blacksburg, which covers the Amherst & Rockbridge County areas are already backing off of the snow predictions but continuing mentioning the potential for ice. The D.C NWS continues to call for 1-3 inches of total accumulation by late tonight, again I don’t see it folks.
If you want lots of real snow, this isn’t your storm. 🙁
Previous post earlier today
So far folks in Nelson County have only seen sleet and freezing rain this morning. The frozen precipitation has been enough to cause a few accidents across the area, mainly confined to I-64 on top of the mountain. At 10:25 AM troopers reported I-64 eastbound at the 127 mile marker shutdown due to an accident.
The wintry mix will increase in intensity as the day wears on. Since temperatures are at or near the freezing mark a mixed bag of winter weather can be expected. And as we have been talking about all morning, this has a greater potential to be a freezing rain and sleet event vs snow. None the less, NWS forecasts still are calling for anywhere from 2-4″ or 3-5″ depending on which sources you view. Personally I don’t see it, but we’ll see what pans out.
One report from Wintergreen Mountain sent to us via our Facebook page said :
“It is all freezing rain and dense fog. It was heavy freezing rain when I first arrived but is letting up some now. Took me over 40 minutes to get from the guard house to the Mountain Inn.”
Hat tip to Kim Chappell over at www.ExperienceWintergreen.com
The air has been generally very dry until this morning and it has taken the atmosphere several hours to moisten up, taking awhile for the more substantial freezing precip to move in. Radar views to our west still show a vast area of precipitation to move into the area later today and tonight.
