Nelson County, Virginia
You don’t need us telling you how brutal the cold weather has become for the first weekend of the new year. It’s just plain cold. Very! And unfortunately there is no real relief in sight for the next week. Daytime highs in the mountains will never crack freezing and probably won’t inch slightly above freezing in the valley portions of Nelson until mid-week at the earliest. Overnight lows Saturday night into Sunday morning were around 0° on the mountain at our NCL-Wintergreen Nature Foundation Station on Devils Knob. In the valley temps fell to the mid-teens as shown on our NCL-Rockfish Valley Station in Greenfield. Out at Montebello temps fell to at least 5° overnight. Combine the very cold temps with the howling winds as gusty as 35-40 MPH at times and you are talking wind chills in the -10° to -15° range. Brutal.
Advisories cancelled early Sunday afternoon
Additionally, a Wind Advisory continues in the mountains along and west of the BRP along with a Wind Chill Advisory in both the valley and mountains.
To make matters worse, many folks living up on the mountain at Wintergreen reported low water, or no water, late Saturday. A memo went out to homeowners there to conserve water usage and not use any water unless absolutely necessary. The email went on to say:
Wintergreen is at historic low levels of potable water and will be for the next 24 hours-(best estimate)
Please take the following actions.
1.Conserve water in every possible way–do not use your dishwasher or any other large water using appliance.
2. Do not use your fireplace–a fire would create an even greater crisis due to large water need.
Do not blame the snowmaking–the water source for that is completely separate. Actually, they are feeding water to the potable water system
Wintergreen Resort also had this message up on their slope report early Sunday morning:
Nelson County Service Authority, the municipal utility which provides water to the Wintergreen Mountain Community, has advised us of a very temporary but serious shortage of drinking water. This is a situation affecting all property owners on the mountain, and guests of the Resort. Because of this challenge, guests should expect limited food and beverage operations and limited restroom facilities. If visiting Wintergreen today, please plan accordingly. We are very sorry for this inconvenience.
A look at the forecast over the next 10 days shows little relief from the brutally cold weather, but a little moderation in temperatures looks to be on the horizon by mid January with daytime highs rising to the 40’s by then.
Button up!
