ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, December 19, 1996            TAG: 9612190081
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: A-1  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN SNIDER STAFF WRITER

PRE-HOLIDAY VISIT FROM SNOW, COLD LIKELY TO BE BRIEF

The romantics dreaming of a white Christmas got an early yuletide present, with forecasters calling for snow accumulation of up to 8 inches in the New River Valley and more in higher elevations.

Snow lovers had better enjoy it while they can because a warming trend by the start of next week means the snow probably won't stick around for St. Nick's yearly visit.

Snow showers were expected to continue this morning in the New River Valley and parts of the Roanoke Valley.

When the last snowflake falls, Roanoke could have anywhere from 3 to 5 inches, and the New River Valley could see 4 to 8 inches, according to the National Weather Service's Blacksburg office.

Mother Nature is also sending cold with the snow. Today's high might reach the lower 30s, but with 15 mph winds, it will feel like it's only in the teens, weather service meteorologist Ken Kostura said.

Depending on how much snow piles up, it could melt Friday and Saturday, or at the latest Monday, when the forecast calls for highs in the mid-40s.

By 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, snow had blanketed the grass, but not the streets, in Blacksburg. In Roanoke, the storm started as a cold, steady rain about 7 p.m. and turned to snow about 90 minutes later.

At 8:30 p.m., the snow was coming down hard in Wytheville and the rest of the New River Valley and beginning to stick to roads.

"It's putting it down," state police dispatcher Jeff Wright said. There had been some accidents, and Wright said there likely would be more.

Wright said he hadn't seen it snow so much in a long time.

"If it does that all night, we'll get 10 feet," he joked.

The snow-laden forecast may have prompted some gift givers to run to the mall Wednesday to finish their Christmas shopping.

"We were very, very busy today," said Louise Dudley, Valley View property manager. "It was a great day."

Dudley said people got out to the mall early, and the heavy turnout was better than an average weekday, more like a Friday.

Shoppers were inconvenienced slightly when a transformer across from the mall caught fire about 2 p.m., knocking out power to many of the stores for 40 minutes, Dudley said.

Emergency lights lit the mall's common areas, but without electricity, smaller vendors had to close, sending everyone to the department stores, which never lost power.

LENGTH: Medium:   53 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. A motorist peers out of his stranded car Tuesday in 
          Grand Forks, N.D. The blizzard was part of a sharp wedge of arctic 
          air driving southward across the nation. color.