(from Governor Northam’s office) On this date, January 14, 2022, I declare that a state of emergency exists in the Commonwealth of Virginia to prepare and coordinate our response to severe winter weather. The Virginia Emergency Operations Center has been actively monitoring the movement of a major winter weather system heading toward Virginia, with anticipated tracks showing impacts beginning the evening of Saturday, January 15, 2022. The National Weather Service is still refining its forecasts based on real-time data, but initial forecasts are predicting impactful to highly impactful snow, sleet, ice, and freezing rain across broad swaths of the Commonwealth, to include higher impacts in the same area affected by the first event.
This area is still dealing with the consequences of last week’s back-to-back events, including power restoration and significant debris removal. This upcoming weather system is likely to include additional downed trees, more electrical outages, and significant impacts on travel conditions. Given the storm’s current forecast, the Commonwealth is leaning forward to assist localities and assist all Virginians who face the impacts of this complex, statewide storm while also coordinating continued COVID operations. Pre-positioning response assets and supplies will be necessary to assist our local and state partners whose resources have been severely strained by ongoing events. The Virginia Emergency Support Team will activate for this incident.
