Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, December 22, 1994 TAG: 9412220098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If you're dreaming of a white Christmas, you'd better head north to Highland County.
It's one of the few spots in Virginia that may get a few flakes by Sunday, state climatologist Pat Michaels said Wednesday.
"Snow is possible on the end of this next storm [today], Friday and Saturday at elevations above 3,000 feet," Michaels said.
And unlike last year, frequent arctic blasts may be a rarity this winter.
"It will be a relatively non-noteworthy winter," based on the National Weather Service forecast, Michaels said.
The winter forecast calls for less snow and more rain than usual and an average temperature a few degrees above Roanoke's 37-degree norm.
"We'll be warmer than the East Coast and less snowy than the West," Michaels said.
That's a drastic change from last winter, when there were 12 freezing-rainstorms, sleetstorms or snowstorms - well above the area's usual four winter storms. There was a day last January when many places in Virginia set all-time temperature lows.
Michaels can't promise there won't be a couple of repeat performances.
"No one can say if there will be one large snowstorm," he said. But that won't stop many from trying to make that prediction, because Southwest Virginia has its own experts: its farmers.
Betty Guthrie has been keeping a close eye on the squirrels near her Franklin County farm.
Animal watching isn't a hobby of hers; it's just one of many crystal balls that farmers use to predict the weather.
There also is the popular woolly worm test (if it's black all the way across, the winter will be harsh) and the more obscure turkey breastbone and bear fat checks.
And as of Wednesday's winter solstice, 'twas the season for guessing.
"They've been gathering a lot of nuts," said Guthrie of the squirrels, and according to farmers' lore, that means it's going to be a harsh winter.
But not all farmers buy into the old predictions or even the daily forecasts in the Old Farmer's Almanac - which is predicting for the mid-Atlantic region a "variability in temperature from month to month," "average or above-normal" precipitation and "above-normal winter snowfall especially in the west and north."
"I believe in science, not predictions," said Bruce Feldburg of Salem's Riverside Nursery.
But even after using barometers and computers and studying air masses, the National Weather Service's forecast may not be any more accurate than trusting the squirrels.
The forecast is said to be 50 percent accurate for precipitation and 60 to 65 percent accurate for temperature.
by CNB