After several winters light on snow, transportation and weather experts are anticipating yet another mild season in Northern Virginia.
The region should expect more ice and rain than snow this winter, according to the National Weather Service’s (NWS) D.C. and Baltimore office.
“La Niña conditions developing in the Pacific are not as strong as initially thought to be,” NWS spokesperson Chris Strong said during a press briefing today (Monday). “So what that equates to is generally a milder-than-normal winter. But again, as a whole, as I always say, we do get our cold shots every winter.”
He predicted blasts of cold that are “fewer and no as long-lasting as some of our colder winters, like we had back in 2012.”
This forecast aligns with trends from the past decade, as winter temperatures in the region have tended to run above normal. According to the NWS, last winter was the seventh warmest on record for the D.C. area, with the previous winter ranking as the fourth warmest.
Though there may be less snow in the mix, Strong said the Mid-Atlantic will likely see near-normal levels of precipitation this year. Storm tracks are forecasted to move up the Appalachians rather than the East Coast, reducing the chance of larger coastal snowstorms.
While minimal snowfall totals have been common in recent years, Strong pointed out that big snowfall winters still crop up from time to time.
“What it comes down to is individual storms at individual times that are going dictate what the seasonal snowfall total is,” Strong said. “We can have a mild winter where we have three days where winter comes together and we have … a higher than normal snowfall year in an otherwise mild year. That’s exactly what happened with our last mega blizzard in January 2016.”
Even with the likelihood of fewer major snow events, the Virginia Department of Transportation isn’t taking chances. The agency has mobilized a fleet of more than 3,000 snow removal vehicles, including trucks, plows and spreaders, across Northern Virginia.
The agency has also stockpiled 120,000 tons of salt, 25,000 tons of sand, and 250,000 gallons of brine to pre-treat roads.
Despite low snow levels, VDOT spokesperson Lauren Mollerup noted that the agency has nearly doubled the size of its fleet in the past decade.
“We used to do snow on 1,500-2,000 pieces of equipment, and this was way before telework and all the things, and we were stuck in our homes for two weeks at a time,” she said. “So, now I would say our level of service is probably better.”
