The Weather Observer

Yes, it is snowing again! It started Friday morning and for our area, it snowed until mid-afternoon where it turned to sleet and rain. It rained most of the night and when we woke this morning, it was snowing again! It’s roughly 3:30pm on Saturday and the snow seems to have stopped coming down so fast. We have roughly six inches in the backyard. It looks like the system is just about gone out there so this is probably it. Although another system is on the west coast so will we get snow again? Just don’t know!

I purchased us a new camera last night and I’m very excited to have it! It’s a Nikon D3000 and I purchased a telephoto lens to go with it so I can get shots like this one. This is Richard’s rain gauge and it’s somewhere that we haven’t been able to get to it very well since the snow has built up, but from my backdoor, I was able to take a photo of it covered in snow. I have lots more snow photos from January and February, over 280! I went driving Friday and got some different shots and then this morning I stood at our front and back doors and took lots of neat photos.

I also have a video that I took while driving. This is raw footage, nothing done to it, just wanted to post it for you. I have some more videos, but need to get those posted and let you know that they are there!

I found this great little feature on another site, called Skywatch Friday. I hope to post a new photo every Friday to support this. If you would like to join the site, feel free to visit, http://skyley.blogspot.com for more information.

Sunrise in Iraq

WRIC Graphic

Well looks like Virginia is in for another round of winter weather this weekend. Governor McDonnell Declares State of Emergency Ahead of Next Major Winter Storm. Potential for Significant Accumulations of Snow and Ice across Large Portion of Commonwealth. This is the same system that dumped around 1 to 2 inches of rainfall in Texas.

This system is on track just like the one last weekend and around December 19th. The one big difference from this system and the others is that the colder air will be in Northern Virginia. So with that said, looks like the line between a lot of snow and little or no accumulation is right at Richmond. Areas to the North will see the most around 12 inches and closer to Richmond will be around 4 to 7 inches. Areas to the South will pick up around 1 to 3 inches. More sleet and rain will be farther South so it will cut down on the amount of snow.

The timing of this system is up and down with the models. Right now looks like Friday night in Saturday will be around the time this change over starts. Most of the snow fall will happen Friday night and by Saturday afternoon the areas to the South should change over to rain as the weekend moves along. I decided to use the WRIC forecast map, since there were so many different totals to use. Still working on my own forecast maps and hope to get better in the future. As for The Weather Observer headquarters in Chester, I will say around 1 to 2 inches of snowfall around Friday night and by Saturday should be sleet and then rain. Really don’t expect much with this system for the area.

Be sure to read Jesse Ferrell Mid-Atlantic Storm Compared to December 19th blog post, it’s a great little read.