RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – This is the storm that could bring us accumulating snow in central Virginia on Wednesday, March 6. The low pressure system will move onshore into Canada’s Pacific coast Friday.
The low will then track southeast through Montana, the Northern Plains, into the upper Mississippi Valley, and aim for North Carolina. That means Virginia would be positioned on the north, cold side of the low pressure center early Wednesday.
Several mid-range forecast models indicate this scenario, and have been showing this consistently for a few days now. However, the computer forecasts differ in the exact position of that low in the Mid-Atlantic, and thus, the resulting snowfall amounts possible in Virginia. I’ve seen forecast snowfall as high as a foot in western Virginia with six inches portrayed in Richmond, to as little as a dusting to an inch in central Virginia.
So if you want an accumulating snowfall in central Virginia, you want the low pressure center over central North Carolina (think Raleigh), placing us on the cold, north side of the low, where the heaviest snowfall band tends to fall.
If you don’t want the snowfall, then you want a more southerly track, where the low’s center dives into South Carolina, keeping us too far north of the moisture.
Right now, the North Carolina solution looks the most likely, but this is the kind of storm where any shift in the low’s track will significantly impact our snowfall forecast in Virginia.
We’ll track this system as it moves into Canada this weekend, and monitor its progress and intensification while diving southeast toward our region early next week.
Stay with CBS 6, we’ll keep you ahead of the storm.
Meteorologist Carrie Rose
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