Parts of Richmond region hit with 5 inches of snow during winter storm

The highest reported total in the region was 5.8 inches in the Meadowville area of Chesterfield County. Other notable snow accumulations included:

• New Kent: 5 inches
• Petersburg: 5 inches
• Chester: 4.8 inches
• Sandston: 3.5 inches
• Short Pump: 3.5 inches
• Mechanicsville: 3.2 inches
• Lakeside: 3 inches
• Powhatan: 3 inches
• Downtown Richmond: 2.6 inches

Nancy Moll, a forecaster with the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Wakefield, said snow melting in the Richmond area will likely ramp up on Friday with highs in the low 40s. Temperatures are also expected to reach the low 40s on Saturday before rising to around 50 degrees by Sunday.

Across Virginia, the winter storm hit hardest in the Hampton Roads area, with many localities approaching or surpassing a foot of snow. Virginia Beach checked in with the highest total at 13 inches.

During an update late Wednesday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Hampton Roads was seeing up to 2 inches of snow per hour.

Emergency crews in Suffolk rescued two people from an SUV that crashed into water on Wednesday afternoon.

Since the start of the storm, Virginia State Police have reported 539 crashes on Virginia roads through 11 a.m. Thursday. No fatalities were reported, but 45 of the crashes resulted in injuries.

In the VSP Division I area that includes much of the central Virginia, Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula regions, 69 crashes were reported, with six involving injuries.

Youngkin said the Virginia Department of Transportation team has been focusing on clearing the major interstates and primary roads, and will get to the secondary roads afterward.

He thanked the public for keeping the traffic volume down and giving road crews space to work.

“Road work has continued at pace,” Youngkin said. “The pretreatment really works, and so our major interstates are in pretty darn good shape.”

Despite the progress on the roads, he warned people to reduce speeds, saying that police have observed people going too fast in the weather-affected areas.

“Slow down,” Youngkin said. “The roads look clearer than they really are and, of course, our equipment is out there and there’s a lot of it on the roads.”

The NWS sent out a black ice advisory alerting drivers in the greater Richmond region, as well as the Hampton Roads, Middle Peninsula, Northern Neck and southern Virginia areas. The advisory is in effect until 10 a.m. Friday.

Due to concerns about lingering hazardous road conditions, Hanover County schools announced that Friday would be a remote learning day.

Richmond, Chesterfield County and Henrico County schools will open Friday on two-hour delays.

In North Carolina, a 53-car pileup occurred along Interstate 40 in Orange County, resulting in one death. Highway patrols in the state responded to nearly 1,200 crashes on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.

In southeastern Virginia, 66 Dominion customers were without power as of 5 p.m. Thursday, per the company’s outage map. The region had more than 2,800 customers experiencing power outages on Thursday morning.

Outage totals in the Richmond and Tri-Cities areas fell well under 100 throughout Thursday.

The AP reported that about 7,500 electric customers in North Carolina had power outages on Thursday morning.

Many of the outages were in the eastern and central parts of the state after they received high snow and ice accumulation.

About 1,800 flights were canceled across the U.S. on Thursday, including 250 flights in and out of Charlotte, per the AP.