Top 5 Weather Events of 2014

The following events occurred in 2014 and were ranked by our staff.

 Cold high pressure was in place across the region on February 11th, 2014. An area of low pressure progressed northward from the Gulf of Mexico the 11th into the 12th of February and transported a generous amount of moisture into and across the cold air over the area, allowing the precipitation to fall as moderate to heavy snow. On February 13, 2014, there was a time where a clearly defined band of snow stalled and pivoted around a central location in southwest Virginia. This allowed for the axis of heaviest snowfall to be centered along parts of the New River and upper Roanoke Valleys.

Snowfall totals averaged 6 to 10 inches along and east of a Martinsville to Lynchburg line, 10 to 14 inches across Mountain Empire, and 12 to 16 inches just east of the crest of the Blue Ridge and north into the southern Shenandoah Valley. A whopping 16 to 26 inches fell from Covington, south into the Blacksburg to Roanoke regions, and farther south to near Galax. The highest end of this range was centered over Floyd County. Sleet amounts were generally less than an inch between Martinsville and Reidsville. In NC, the highest snowfall totals fell near Interstate 77, where some 20-to-21-inch totals fell.  At the time, this event was the third highest snowfall on record in Blacksburg and Roanoke. 

A surge of arctic air reached the mid-Atlantic during the early morning hours of January 6th. Temperatures continued to fall over the next 24 hours, eventually bottoming out below zero nearly everywhere west of the Blue Ridge. Winds remained gusty through that 24-hour period as well due to a tightened pressure gradient as high pressure built into the region. The result was dangerously low wind chill temperatures not seen in the region in many years.

In Blacksburg, the -5F temperature reading on January 7 was the coldest since January 1994. In Roanoke, the low of 1F was the coldest since February 1996. For Bluefield, WV, the low of -8F was the also the coldest since February 1996. Lewisburg bottomed out at a frigid -12F on the morning of the January 7.

A rare tornado struck parts of western Mercer County, WV during the late evening hours of October 7, 2014. An NWS survey team from the Blacksburg office rated the tornado EF-1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale with winds gusting between 86 to 110 mph. There were two minor injuries. Damage was confined to mainly trees and a few small structures including one mobile home in a rural area of western Mercer County just west of Spanishburg. The tornado was on the ground from 11:39 to 11:49 PM with a track of 5.5 miles and a damage swath up to 180 yards wide. The forward speed was estimated at 50 mph!

According to available records, this was only the second tornado to strike Mercer County since 1950, the other being an F2 (the Fujita scale was then in use) on April 12, 1965.

An area of low pressure tracked out of the Gulf of Mexico and along the southeast coast on November 25th.  By the morning on the 26th, this low was along the NC coast and triggered a band of snow over the south-central Appalachians. This band developed over portions of the New River Valley, resulting in thousands of power outages and hampering travel during the morning of the busiest travel day of the year.

At the time, August 2014 was the wettest August on record in Bluefield (6.41 inches), while Blacksburg (5.95) and Danville (6.23) recorded their 4th wettest August on record. Roanoke experienced the 6th wettest August (6.53) on record.