Sunday snow in Old Hollow
It was the perfect snow: Pretty to look at, but no big disruptions. The Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office said there were no major accidents during the storm, despite extremely slippery road conditions that had VDOT crews scrambling much of Sunday into Monday.
Yet another pre-winter snow storm, the second to strike Rappahannock County this autumn season, arrived with little warning Sunday afternoon, sending residents indoors and closing schools on Monday.
A much-hyped “southern” storm, tracked for several days from the Pacific to the Atlantic, was forecast to remain south of Roanoke, with a bullseye on western North Carolina. But it shifted north at the last minute and unloaded as much as two feet of snow on the Old Dominion.
Rappahannock escaped with only a few inches of the white stuff, with the largest amounts falling in southern portions of the county. No snow whatsoever was reported along much of the I-66 corridor.
Virginia State Police on Sunday alone responded to more than 1,000 traffic crashes and just shy of 1,150 disabled vehicles. No traffic deaths were associated with the early season storm, although three Troopers were struck by vehicles, leaving one hospitalized with minor injuries.
A dispatcher for the Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office said there were no major accidents during the storm, despite extremely slippery road conditions that had VDOT crews scrambling much of Sunday into Monday, when afternoon temperatures warmed to near 40 degrees.
A mid-November ice and snow storm caused similar road conditions and school closures in the county, and portions of Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park were still shut down weeks later. As of press time this week, all of Skyline Drive was closed due to Sunday’s storm.