After a warm weather period that brought days of record or near-record high temperatures to the region, it seemed only natural for this week to begin with snow and continue the strange weather pattern.
Rain overnight Sunday was followed by snowfall on Monday morning as a more-typical January cold snap took hold, accompanied by a rash of traffic accidents across the area.
“Once the snow hit, we had call after call,” First Sgt. J.M. Church of the Surry-Stokes unit of the N.C. Highway Patrol summed up around noon Monday.
“Plenty of cars in ditches,” added Church, who said extra troopers were called out to handle the heavy volume that included mishaps involving tractor-trailers. “We’ve been really busy, (but) no really bad wrecks — nobody seriously hurt in Surry or Stokes.”
The snow began falling about 8 a.m. Monday at F.G. Doggett Water Plant in Mount Airy, the city’s official weather-monitoring station, and lasted until just before 10 a.m.
But it left a mark with an accumulation of 0.7 inches, according to the measurement at the water facility.
In addition to traffic accidents, tree-in-roadway and other incidents including downed electrical lines were responded to by local public safety crews.
“We had about a dozen reports of trees or power lines,” said Eric Southern, the county’s director of emergency services, regarding calls handled by Surry EMS crews. “We had a couple of fender benders — some people slid off the road — nobody was hurt, thankfully.”
Greater amounts of wet snow were reported in Carroll County and other parts of Virginia, where totals ranged from 2 to 5 inches, depending on factors including elevation.
In light of the falling temperatures and the wintry mix across the area, Mount Airy City Schools were closed for students Monday, when an optional workday was in place for teachers.
Surry County Schools already were scheduled to be closed Monday for students, with an optional teacher workday planned for teachers.
Warm weather prelude
Strangely, the wintry weather came after a weekend of balmy conditions across the region.
On Sunday, for example, the mercury had hit 77 degrees, according to water plant statistics, but this oddly was not enough to break the record for the city for the Jan. 2 date. It fell one degree short of the 78-degree high mark set in 1952. Weather records have been kept in Mount Airy since 1924.
Saturday’s high here was a pleasant 61 degrees, no threat to the 67-degree record temperature for New Year’s Day in Mount Airy which also was established in 1952.
The mercury did break a record on Dec. 27, when the high of 72 topped the previous one for that date locally of 70 degrees set in 1971.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com