REMEMBER: YOU READ IT HERE FIRST

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993                   TAG: 9302210105
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
REMEMBER: YOU READ IT HERE FIRST
Our last real snow in the Roanoke Valley, 38 months ago, brought us nearly 10 inches over a four-day period. Real snow gets the bottom of your pants wet and is deeper than a pair of high-top sneakers. Pretend snow is everything from high tops on down.
We have slumped badly since that December of '89, suffering a long streak of slush storms - thick, gooey layers of see-through ice/water/grit hawked into our paths.
You can write off this wretch of a winter. Technically, it's got four weeks to go, but it's over. There won't be snow. You heard it here first.
The next major snowfall is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 11. Bank on it. Mark your calendar. Buy your salt accordingly, plan your cross-county skiing for that date and make sure the plow blade is safely fastened to the front of the pickup truck.
Awed by my meteorological prowess, you are probably too bashful to ask how I know that real, high-top-clearing snow will fall on Dec. 11.
Don't be shy. Ask me. I will answer you with one word. No, two words: Stagg Bowl.
The Stagg Bowl is a football game played between colleges. These are not big colleges. Stagg Bowl teams are small schools, where top recruits must settle for used Volkswagens instead of Corvettes.
These are good football teams, made of players who: a) are too academically gifted to play at big colleges; b) flunked out of big colleges; c) had reconstructive knee surgery as a result of playing at big colleges; d) foolishly avoided steroids during their formative years and so are not big enough to play at big colleges.
The Stagg Bowl, named after the Rose Bowl, has been played since 1990 in Bradenton, Fla.
Effective this year, and through 1995, titans of the small-college gridiron will vie for pigskin immortality at Spartan Stadium in Salem.
The Stagg Bowl this year will be played right here in Salem on Dec. 11.
It'll snow.
Salem attracted the event, which could draw thousands of fans and their wallets, by offering good facilities, convenient location and some highly unpredictable weather.
Hope nobody shows up looking for palm trees. Leave the Bain de Soleil at home.
It's going to snow on Stagg Bowl day. Got to. Would our luck run any different?
On Dec. 11, 1960, 5 inches of snow fell on the Roanoke Valley. Cars slipped off bridges. Schools closed. The Northeast was paralyzed with 2 feet of snow and we felt sympathy pains.
In 1958, it got to be 23 degrees on Dec. 11 and no more.
"It gets cool in December," said Chip Knappenberger, a state climatological office worker, of Salem winters. "Sometimes it gets real cool."
Sometimes, as on Dec. 25, 1969, we get 14.6 inches of snow.
Chances of rain or snow are one in three on Dec. 11, judging by the past half-century.
Three snowless winters have us craving a deep lather. We'd take it anytime, but not on Dec. 11. That's the day we expect thousands of out-of-town guests for the Stagg Bowl and want them to enjoy a comfortable day in the stands of a stadium in Salem.
It'll snow. Mark your calendar.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB