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

DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994                   TAG: 9401170121
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IT'S JUST THE BALM BEFORE THE STORM

A gust of balmy air from the Gulf of Mexico is expected to arrive over Southwest Virginia today.

Now, the bad news.

The gulf breeze will not lift the region out of the deep freeze.

Finally, the really bad news.

The warm, moist air will bring sleet and freezing rain.

The National Weather Service has placed the region under a winter storm warning. Forecasters say snow should start around daybreak today, followed by sleet and freezing rain.

There is talk of a "significant accumulation of ice."

Things could get so slick that everyone may quickly forget how cold it was last weekend.

On Sunday, the mercury dipped below zero all across the region. A reading of 14 degrees below zero was reported in the coal mining town of Clintwood in far Southwest Virginia and at the Mountain Lake resort in Giles County.

In Roanoke, the temperature fell to 2 below zero early Sunday, but not far enough to make history.

The coldest Jan. 16 on record in Roanoke was 4 below zero in 1972.

It was so cold that Appalachian Power Co.'s all-time record for peak demand set Saturday morning was broken and broken again.

The new record - 6,263,000 kilowatts set at 11 a.m. Sunday - was 4.5 percent higher than the company's previous winter peak set on Dec. 22, 1989, according to Apco Vice President Charles Simmons.

The weather outlook will get worse before it gets better.

The snow, sleet and freezing rain expected today will be followed by another arctic blast tonight that could lead to temperatures that could rival the weekend lows, according to Jan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Roanoke.

The frigid temperatures could hold through the middle of the week, Jackson said.

"The good news is that this weather pattern is breaking down, so after this arctic air in the middle of the week, we should get back to normal temperatures," Jackson said.