Snow covers streets across Hampton Roads

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Ali Reid reported live from Norfolk as snow buried roads across eastern Virginia on the evening of Feb. 19.

Transcript

00:00AccuWeather's Allie Reed is there. Allie, we will try this again. You were giving us a great picture

00:05of the road conditions and just kind of the current situation there in Norfolk.

00:12Right, we're in downtown Norfolk, guys, right now. Really interesting to see the trajectory of when

00:18the snowfall started a few hours ago versus where we are now. We know the snow is dumping down

00:23really about an inch an hour. That is a lot of snowfall at one time. By the way,

00:28here is some of the major roadways in the downtown area. This car within the last couple of seconds

00:34took him about five minutes to even get past this road because he was stuck. He wasn't able

00:39to get over it and that is something that we've been seeing time and time again. Andy, if we can,

00:44let's zoom in on that car all the way in the distance across from us. The reason why that car

00:48is stopped is because if you take a look to the left of that vehicle, that is a hill right there

00:54and a lot of these cars are just simply not able to get up and over it. That has been a recurring

00:59problem not only in the downtown area but a lot of the major roadways too. But I want to show you

01:04what it looked like just two, three hours ago. Okay, not nearly as much snowfall as what we're seeing now

01:13but this shows you what it looks like in that area. That's about a 20-minute drive from where

01:17we are now and we know there is getting pummeled with snow too. Really interesting to see what it

01:23looks like along the shoreline there. Nasty waves in that area too, all mixing in with this

01:30snowfall that we're seeing. We also had an opportunity to catch up with a business owner

01:34there. Take a listen to what he has to say just about what the snowfall can be like in this area

01:39on a typical year. I'm just glad I'm not working. We never know what we're going to have.

01:47One year I had roses blooming on my deck, the next year we had 15 inches of snow.

01:52Usually it's about one or two inches all we get here.

02:00Again, that goes to show you Virginia Beach, Norfolk area, Hampton Roads as a whole does not

02:06see this type of snowfall in a typical year. A lot of people, you scroll through X, you know other

02:11social media and they say, wow this is unusual for this type of area and that is so true. What's

02:18interesting is that what we'll see over the next couple of hours, again we could potentially see

02:22later on tonight into early tomorrow, potentially anywhere from 9 to 12 inches of accumulated

02:28snowfall. 12 inches by the way, that is upwards of a foot of snow here in this area. That doesn't

02:36happen very often. Again, let's show you the roadways one more time before we send it back

02:39into studio. Again, a lot of these smaller vehicles, SUVs having an easier time getting

02:44through. A lot of these cars that you're seeing, Hondas, other vehicles, having a difficult time

02:49getting across roadways because of the slippery roadways that we're seeing right now. And that is

02:56only, again, we're really only just a few hours into this. This is going to continue for hours.

03:00We've seen the crashes on the roads. Police, other entities trying to do as much as they can right

03:06now to get ahead of it. Unfortunately guys, I think that this is only the start. I think we

03:11could potentially see some more crashes, some accidents later on tonight, something we'll be

03:15keeping an eye on. But the biggest thing, if you are here or in any area that has snowfall right

03:20now, stay home. Stay nice and cozy. That's where you should be watching AccuWeather. All right,

03:25we're going to check with you in about 30 minutes time. We'll send it back to you for now.

03:29All right, Allie, thank you so much. One of those signs says, when it snows, we're closed. So that

03:34should be our theme here at AccuWeather, right? I don't know that the people watching us would

03:39love that very much. So like we need to know about the forecast. I will say though, it's so

03:42easy to think, eh, there's snow on the roads, but it's not that bad. I need to head out. I'll be

03:46quick. It'll be fine. Just stay home. Just stay home. Yeah. Allie was talking with some VDOT folks.

03:51That's the Virginia Department of Transportation. They were saying that this is a once in a decade

03:57type of winter storm that they've been tracking. So you can see like some of the major roadways,

04:00those are fine. But the side roads that Allie was reporting from,

04:03that's where we're going to get into trouble here as we head into this evening.

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