Richmond Braces For 2 Feet Of Snow

The forecast finally points at Richmond—and not with a gentle nudge. We’re staring down a potential foot of snow followed by single-digit cold that turns slush into black ice and routine errands into risk. So we slow things down and map what actually keeps a household safe: fuel, heat, water, food, and the discipline to stay off the roads while the city catches up.

We start with the hard realities of central Virginia winter: limited snow removal, contractor-heavy plowing, and a driving culture that speeds up when traction goes down. From there, we dig into what changing models really tell us, why local meteorologists hedge, and how to read the National Weather Service guidance without getting spun by hype. Then we get practical. Fill every tank and stage at least 10 gallons per vehicle at home, top off propane, and grab those small cylinders before shelves empty. Build water reserves that support at least 72 hours, and stock pantry staples—beans, rice, soups, pasta, freeze-dried meals—so you’re not competing for the last loaf and carton.

Heat is the centerpiece. We walk through zoning rooms with doors and heavy quilts, using south-facing windows for daytime warmth, and making backup heat safe with proper ventilation and detectors. Cooking stays simple with butane stoves, grills, and a Blackstone, all fueled up and used safely. We cover battery banks, flashlights, weather radios, and the balance between solar generators and gasoline units, including testing and exercising your generator before the storm. Outside, we flag the small details that matter: clearing around HVAC units, staging shovels, knowing when salt won’t melt, and laying down kitty litter for traction. If you keep backyard chickens, we talk windbreaks and when to bring them into the garage as temps plunge.

The theme is calm readiness, not panic. Forecasts will tighten; preparation doesn’t need to wait. If this helped you think clearly about winterizing your routine, subscribe, share it with a neighbor who tends to panic-buy, and leave a quick review so others can find us. Then tell us: what’s your smartest cold-weather habit that more people should know?

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Chapters

• 0:09 Welcome, Giveaway, And News
• 2:18 Why Richmond Struggles With Snow
• 4:17 Storm Models, Media, And Credibility
• 6:56 Richmond In The Bullseye: Likely Totals
• 9:04 Lessons From Past Storms
• 10:34 Fuel, Water, And Power Prep
• 13:00 Heat, Zoning Rooms, And Cooking
• 15:07 Gear Checks, Generators, And Safety
• 17:21 Chickens, HVAC, And Outdoor Prep
• 19:10 Candles, Kids, And Quiet Comfort

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:09

The National Labor Summit Position is severe thunderstorm warning. To the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, where prepping doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Coming to you from a well-defended off-grid compound high in the mountains. Coming to you from his Florida room in Richmond, Virginia. Neither off-grid nor well-defended, unless you count as chickens and cats, here is your host, Keith.

SPEAKER_00: 0:40

Hey everybody, this is Keith, and welcome back to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, January the 20th, 2026. A couple administrative things. I'll get out of the way at the beginning. I'm doing my first giveaway, a$25 Amazon gift card. All you have to do is email me at practicalpreppodcast at gmail.com. And somewhere in the title or the body, put in Amazon gift card, pick me, I'm a winner. Anything that you want to put in there. And then this Friday, depending on how many entries, I'll go ahead and do a random number generator thingy. And then that person will win the$25 Amazon gift card. It'll be a digital code. I will email you the code. If you live outside the United States, it will automatically convert that 25 USD to your native currency. In addition, it appears that tomorrow on Wednesday the 21st, I will be a guest on the PBN family. If you're not familiar with this website, just go ahead and Google Prepper Broadcasting Network. And they have a bunch of different content creators and they have a schedule. So you can pretty much look at their website and figure out who is talking when about what. And if you become a member, a subscriber to their website, gives you access to a ton of material. Give them a look-see, prepper broadcasting network. And I will provide more details via my Twitter feed when all of the details get ironed out. But I believe we're going to be talking about the pending storm that has a bullseye at this point on Tuesday evening, has a bullseye tacked right onto Richmond, Virginia. And so let's talk about that. Let's talk about preparation for this upcoming storm. Let's talk about the storm. So Richmond, Virginia is located kind of in a weird spot, about 80 miles from the mountains, about 80 miles from the beach. And normally, when the weather comes over the mountains, comes over the Blue Ridge, by the time it gets down to Richmond, it's kind of petered out. There's not a whole lot. So if it's snowing up in Southwest Virginia, if it's snowing in the Appalachians, it's snowing in the Blue Ridge, depending on the storm, there's a good chance you're not going to get anything or very little as far as accumulation in Richmond. And then as you move towards the coast, Virginia Beach, obviously it's warmer. And we and down at the beach, tidewater area, they get even less snow. So as far as snow removal here in central Virginia, for the most part, it's nonexistent. And I'm not ragging on the Virginia Department of Transportation. That's just the way it is. They're not going to invest tens of millions of dollars in snow removal equipment. This is not Boston. This is not Buffalo, New York, and this is certainly not Chicago. So a lot of the snow removal is done by contractors. And what you see on the roads are these large dump trucks with plows attached, provided by the state, and they drop salt and all sorts of chemicals on the road. They pre-treat the roads. But here's the deal: in central Virginia, when it rains, people drive like five or 10 miles per hour. When it snows or it's icy, they double the speed limit. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I grew up in the Midwest, so I know how to drive a manual. I know how to drive a four-wheel drive, and I know how to drive in the snow and the ice. People here just don't get it. I'm not sure why, but that's a story for a different time. So it's going to be a pretty significant snowstorm. We're looking at probably at this point, probably a foot plus of snow in Richmond, Virginia. Now I will tell you what, that will absolutely paralyze, absolutely paralyze this city for at least a week to 10 days. No question. No question at all. That coupled with the single-digit temperatures that are gonna come in right behind the snowstorm is gonna make it even worse. Any plowing that's been done will freeze overnight, it'll just get packed down, it'll create black ice, and driving in black ice is even more treacherous than driving in snow. I believe there was a hundred-car plus pileup in Michigan over the last few days. If watching that video does not convince you that you need a get home bag or some type of bag in your car with the essentials in the event you get run off the road or worse, you end up in the middle of one of these pileups. Like I've said before, you get into a 50-car pileup, EMS is not going to get to you in a timely manner. If the roads are so bad that you're in the middle of a 50-car pileup, just think EMS has a million different calls for service they need to get to. It's going to take them a while to get to you. So you need to be prepared. Talked about what's in a get home bag. Go back and look at previous episodes if you have any questions about what you should have, how you should prepare yourself and your vehicle for winter driving. So the local weather folks, who I trust as far as I can throw them, and it's and I get it. They're under contract, they have people they have to answer to, but they are really shying away from talking about the potential for a serious storm. They say a storm is possible, accumulation is likely, but as of Tuesday evening, they've yet to really say what might or might not happen. And I get it. They don't want to cause a panic and then they have to dial it back. So they say eight to ten, we get one to two. Now all of a sudden, the next time there's a significant storm, nobody wants to believe them. And so it goes to their credibility. So they're very reluctant to get out ahead of these things. Now, let's be honest. Your meteorologists look at information provided by the National Weather Service and other services. Their job is to interpret that data. So again, nothing against my local meteorologist, but they're just reading off a computer screen. They're looking at these different models. And as the computer models firm things up, there is a more likelihood that what these models are showing will actually come true. So once the models firm up, the meteorologists stand up there and say eight to ten inches, 10 to 12 inches. And they're very confident with what they're saying because they're reading the most available data from the National Weather Service. So it's not like they're making this up on their own. They're doing a bunch of calculations on the side on a piece of scratch paper. They're reading what the models tell them. So the closer you are to the weather event, obviously, the more accurate the information is. Now there are a bunch of people out there. So who I follow on YouTube is Ryan Hall. It's like Ryan Yall or Ryan Yall, something like that. He does an excellent job. So he's a meteorologist. He lives in Kentucky. So his whole house is like a big weather station. He calls it like the weather house, and it is very high-tech. He streams for hours upon hours live when the storm hits, be it a flood, hurricane, severe winter storm. And a lot of his teammates are storm chasers. So they will have people out on the roads reporting live about what's going on in particular parts of the country. They'll be spread out. So in watching his latest video, I think he published it about noon today. He said that Richmond is right in the middle of this. Richmond may get hammered with this storm. All the different models are starting to firm up. So tomorrow, about this time, we'll have a much better idea. Wednesday afternoon, EST will have a very good idea of what this is going to look like. He's looking at 12 inches plus. Again, anything over six, Richmond, Virginia, Central Virginia is paralyzed. So I am going to prepare as if we're getting at least six, 12, 14, 16 inches of snow is what I am preparing for. Now you might say to yourself, oh my gosh, what are you going to have to do to prepare for that? Well, here's the deal. I am already prepared to a certain level. Okay. If you're a prepper, you are prepared for situations like this. Now, will I have to tweak a few things? Absolutely. Because when we're talking about a foot plus, there's other things that I need to do as opposed to being prepared for a snowstorm of six inches. So let's go over what I'm prepared for and then what I actually need to tweak. So, some historic data. In January 2002, about 10 inches, schools out for five days. They ran out of salt, they ran out of chemicals to treat the roads. Not a good situation. And again, there's not a large budget for snow removal. It's very, very small. January 2022, about a foot of snow in this in central Virginia, and Richmond ground to a halt. I-95 basically turned into a parking lot for several days, supermarkets, shelves were bare. And another odd thing about the folks in central Virginia, they panic by. You hear the joke bread, milk, and eggs. It's like the only thing you're eating when the snow hits is French toast. Again, if you're a prepper, you've already got a certain level of preparedness laid down as a foundation. Number one, extra fuel. Make sure all of your vehicles are filled up with gas and have extra. Have extra just in case. Your fuel cans, your jerry cans, whatever you want to call them, make sure you have at least 10 gallons extra fuel per car. If you have two cars, you need to have 20 gallons. I don't suggest carrying fuel in your vehicle. That can be kind of dangerous, but some people do, and that is certainly entirely up to you. But I hesitate to put a five-gallon gas can in my trunk. I definitely don't want it in my back seat just because I'm paranoid about the fumes. So I'm going to make sure that my vehicles have full tanks of gas. I certainly don't plan on going anywhere unnecessarily once the snow hits. I'm prepared to be inside and only go out if I have to. Why go out if I don't have to? Snow is snow. It's the white fluffy stuff that falls from the sky and sticks on the ground. I don't need to drive around and become a hazard on the road to myself or to others by, oh, look at the snow. Oh, look how much snow they got. It's snow, I've seen it plenty, not that big of a deal. Rock salt, kitty litter. You need to throw it on your steps, your sidewalk. You don't slip and fall and bust your butt. Now, mind you, rock salt and the salt that you throw down on your steps, your front porch or your sidewalk, is only going to work up to a certain temperature. If it gets well below freezing, you can throw all the salt out there that you want to. It's not going to melt the snow nor the ice. Water. I'm ready. No issues at all. But if you're not, when you go to the store, grab some additional water. Grab two or three extra gallons of water. Grab a couple cases of water extra. Because there is an excellent chance that if we get six plus inches of snow, we will lose power. This is separate from the areas to the south of Richmond that are looking at an inch to an inch and a quarter of ice. It takes very, very little ice to bring down a power line. Less than a quarter of an inch of ice on a power line will bring it down. I am preparing that just because of the snow amounts that we are going to lose power. Somebody's going to hit a utility pole, a transformer is going to blow. I am preparing myself for losing power sometime late, late Saturday or early Sunday morning. Food, bread, milk, eggs, the old standby. But again, I look at my pantry, I see some beans, I see some rice, I see some of the pre-packaged stuff from August and Farms and all the other companies that sell freeze-dried emergency preparedness. I'm good to go. I've got my freezer, plenty of chicken, plenty of pork chops, food, I'm good to go. Heat. Backup heat sources. So I have gas logs as well as an on-demand hot water heater that runs on propane. So I'm good there. I do have my solar generators. I do have my solar panels. I do have ways of generating supplemental heat in the event we lose power. I do have the large quilts. I will close off the office door, close off the pantry door, close off areas of the home that I'm not going into. And I also have those large heavy quilts that I can put over the threshold, to say from the living room to the front room, the front room to the kitchen, to in a sense block off that area, close off the vents. So any heat that I am able to generate, I can then channel into the areas that I'm going to be staying in. Again, you lose power, I'm going to put up the quilts and kind of cordon off the areas that I'm not going into. Florida room, plenty of windows. If the sun is shining, I will have the blinds up and I'll use whatever radiant heat I can get through the windows. So as far as cooking, I've got my Coleman grill, my butane stove, my blackstone. So again, as far as that goes, I'm set. But if you need to pick up the little propane bottles, something I would probably do sooner than later. If your house runs on propane, probably check the level in your tank. Call whoever you get your propane from and see if it's not too late to get a top-off scheduled for your tank. Try not to let your tank get below 25%. Just a regular rule of thumb that I've used for quite some time. Your power banks, your radios, your flashlights, make sure all your power banks are charged. Make sure your flashlights have fresh batteries. If you have solar, take a few minutes. Check your solar panels, check your connections. I would say check the snow load on your panels, but again, we're talking about central Virginia. If you're in a part of the country where snow loads are a thing, especially out west, you just can't throw a solar panel up on your roof and say, oh, it looks great. You really have to worry about snow loads and wind loads. Again, depends on your setup, depends on where you live. So Thursday, it's supposed to get up to 58. So Thursday is when I will prepare the outside. Also make sure that if you have an HVAC, your unit is outside. Make sure you have a shovel handy. So if the snow gets too bad, if it gets too high, the drifts get too high, because many times your HVAC unit is kind of located next to the house at a corner, relatively close to your house. So be careful. The wind generates, you get a lot of leaves, a lot of junk, a lot of snow, a lot of ice on top of that unit. It doesn't allow the air to circulate and it kind of defeats the purpose. So make sure you have a shovel, a brush, whatever you want to use to make sure you keep the ice off of your unit and make sure the ice and snow does not accumulate too much on top of the unit. Just be prepared for that. Of course, if you lose power, it's a moot point. Thursday afternoon, I will wrap some heavy plastic around the chicken coop and the chicken runs to make sure the wind stays away from the chickens and try to keep as much snow out of the runs as I can. Now, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, when we're down into single digits or near single digits, I will have a spot staked out in the garage for the chickens to stay inside. I certainly don't want to put them through the super cold temperatures if I don't have to. I'm sure they would do fine, but they are my pets and I take care of my pets. So they will be in the garage with Mr. Rogers for those three days. Depending on the forecast, do you need to get a snow shovel? You need a snowblower, or you can just go out with a little brush and the ice scraper and take care of your car. It never hurts to have a decent snow shovel. They're going to be very difficult to find here in the next day or two, as well as generators and supplemental heating sources. You go to Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, they'll throw out a bunch of generators, a bunch of shovels, a bunch of the Mr. Buddy heat things, and they'll go pretty quick. I will also need to test my generator. I will drag that out Thursday. Now maybe I'll do that tomorrow and fire up the generator just to make sure the battery's topped off and to make sure it's going to run, because I will be using the generator when or if the sun does not provide enough wattage to take care of my solar generators and my battery banks and my other backups. So depending on what I need to run, I may or may not have to fire up the generator to supplement my power needs, depending on how much snow we get. If you have kids, little kids around the house, get your cards, get your board games, again, I'm going to assume that I'm going to lose power. I have emergency candles. I made plenty, I think I made 10 or 12 emergency candles with soy wax. It burns cleaner, no fumes. I got some special wicks. Again, it doesn't give out any dangerous fumes from the chemicals. A lot of these candles that you get from these stores, Yankee candles and all that, have all sorts of scents and all sorts of chemicals to make them smell good, to make them look good. Granted, they give off light, do what they're supposed to do, but do you really want to be burning a candle that's just throwing chemicals up into the air that's being circulated through your house that you're inhaling, especially in the winter, your house is closed up. Probably not the worst thing in the world to have a smelly candle. So I read an article about that and I decided to make my emergency candles out of soy wax that are much cleaner burning candles. I forgot to mention one thing. When it comes to propane, I need to go out and check my propane cylinders under my Blackstone. I believe I have a full one and I have two that are less than half. One might be empty and one might be close to empty. So I need to go out and double check those cylinders. Maybe on the way back from work, I'll swing by Home Depot and I'll get that one replaced. I'll just do a swap for that and I'll go ahead and exchange them regardless of their level. So I will have three full tanks in the event I need to run the generator off one of the larger cylinders or the power's out, and I want to do a lot of cooking on the Blackstone. So the storm is definitely something to keep an eye on. I'm not too worried about the snow totals themselves. I am more worried about the single digit temperatures that follow the snow come Sunday, Monday, into Tuesday. And the great thing about weather, it is subject to change. So there's a good chance this may be a lot less, five, six, seven inches. There's also a chance it's going to be more 14, 16, 18 inches. So again, as the forecast firms up Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday evening, I think we'll have a better idea of what exactly we're going to get. All right, folks, if you have any questions, practical prep podcast at gmail.com, please reach out. I'm also on the Twitter prep underscore podcast. You can always search Common Sense Practical Prepper. Please share this podcast. And if you have a minute, please consider leaving a review. Alright, folks, thanks again for stopping by. I really do appreciate it. As always, please be careful. Out there, take care of one another, and until next time.

SPEAKER_01: 20:04

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