Anecdotally, it seems as if this year has been very dry across much of Virginia – with the big exceptions being the two tropical systems that move through earlier this year.
So… I posed that question to Phil Hysell – the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s office in Blacksburg.
“You look at Richmond – and they’re actually for the year an inch and a half above normal. And there’s several sites in Virginia – thanks to the rain from a couple tropical systems and a wet early part of the season – that are still near normal.”
But it really depends on where you are in the Commonwealth…
“Now, once you get up to the northeast part of the state – in the NOVA area – there’s where you really start to see the annual deficits. At Sterling, Dulles – they’re about nine inches below the yearly average.”
There are also a few areas in Southwest Virginia – including Roanoke – that are just below average so far through the year.
Hysell says there really hasn’t been one contributing factor for areas that have been dry this year. It’s just been a case of feast or famine – with extended dry stretches bookmarked by abnormally large amounts of rain in a short period of time. The precipitation just hasn’t been spread out equally, which certainly can cause problems.
Both state monitoring and the U.S. Drought Monitor show large swaths of Virginia under some level of dryness or drought right now. The hardest hit areas are in eastern and northern Virginia – in addition to parts of the Shenandoah Valley – which has been the case for a good chunk of the year.
Some significant rain is headed our way later this week, but Hysell says there is a caveat.
“It looks like most of the rain is going to fall along and south of Route 460 and the areas that need the rain most – up in northeast Virginia – are going to need much more. If you look at the Palmer Drought Index – which is an indicator of how much rain is needed to alleviate drought conditions – in that area in northeast Virginia, they need three to seven inches of rain in a month to erase the severe drought that is occurring there. And we’re certainly not going to see that.”
He adds that some of the long-range models suggest that some of that moisture could be brought into the area later this month by a disturbance currently in the central Caribbean.
“But that’s way out and there’s a lot of uncertainty about that. But after Thursday, that may be our next chance for a widespread rain.”
Looking ahead, I asked Hysell what some of the long-range modeling and projections are showing as we approach the first part of winter. He says meteorologists have been waiting for the El Nino-Southern Oscillation to translate to a weak La Nina for some time now.
“Which generally means drier than normal conditions – which obviously isn’t good. But the fact that it’s going to be very weak, if it actually gets to La Nina at all, means that there will be other oscillations – like the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation – that could influence temperatures and precipitation. So, the official forecast is for equal chances of above, below and near normal precipitation because the signals are just not that strong this season.”
Things change, though, when it comes to temperature for the winter months. Hysell says those signs looking warm.
“That doesn’t mean that we’ll be absent from snow. There will still be some short cold snaps embedded in the winter season. But when you take the three months of the meteorological winter – from December through February – and average those readings out – they’re very likely to be above normal.”
Regardless of what the winter holds, Hysell says it’s so important to have multiple ways to get weather information – especially as the forecast can vary widely depending where you are in Virginia.
Having an emergency preparedness kit is also important. You can purchase a pre-made one or find more information about how to make one through resources from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
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