Blizzard Warning | Virginia Weather

Good morning! I'm Aaron Jolly. And welcome to the Virginia Weather Podcast — it's Monday, February 23rd. The Eastern Shore is getting absolutely hammered right now. We're talking blizzard conditions with snow falling at 3 inches an hour and wind gusts hitting 60 miles an hour near Ocean City. That's hurricane-force wind mixed with whiteout snow. The Blizzard Warning stays up until 7 PM tonight. If you're out there, stay inside. Roads are skating rinks. And power lines are coming down. The rest of Virginia woke up to a fresh inch of snow — just enough to make everything slick. Central and southeastern Virginia are under Winter Weather Advisories, with Hampton Roads seeing a nasty mix of rain and snow between 11 AM and 1 PM that's leaving ice on bridges and overpasses. Temperatures are hovering right at freezing, so anything wet is going to lock up solid tonight. Western Virginia.. You've got wind. Gusts hit 50 miles an hour in the mountains today, strong enough to knock down branches and flip trucks. With temperatures in the 20s, wind chills drop near zero at higher elevations. That's the kind of cold that bites. Here's the breakdown. Central Virginia hits 43 degrees around 3 PM, but northwest winds gust to 30 miles an hour. By 5 AM Tuesday, it'll feel like 19 degrees. Hampton Roads only climbs to 41 with 38-mile-an-hour gusts — brutal near the water. Western Virginia reaches 41 under mostly sunny skies, but those 41-mile-an-hour gusts make it feel closer to zero in the mountains. Tonight, winds ease and skies clear. Lows drop to the mid-20s statewide. Watch for black ice on bridges and sidewalks. The week ahead brings sunshine Tuesday with highs in the low 40s. Wednesday clouds return. Thursday delivers rain — lots of it — with highs jumping into the upper 50s. That rain lingers into Friday, but by the weekend we're flirting with the low 60s. Winter's grip is loosening. Charge your phone and fill the gas tank if you're on the Eastern Shore. You might need both. That's your forecast — we'll be back tomorrow.