Photos by Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

Deborah and Charlie Duvall of Botetourt County and their daughters Heather, 18, and Ally, 14, went to Back Country Ski & Sports on Sunday to get ready for fun in the snow — at some ski resort, not here.

Blair Ramsey (left), 35, and Susan Funk, 43, both teachers at Monterey Elementary School, talked about snow during their walk along the Roanoke River Greenway on Sunday. "We would love for it to snow," Ramsey said. "Definitely, because we're on break. It's going to snow." Of course during school days, "it's a nice little surprise when I wake up and it's snowing and I can roll back over," Ramsey added.

Forecasters are betting against a White Christmas here.

Big surprise, right?

It's been almost four years since the Roanoke Valley has had an above-ankle, stocking-soaking snow.

A real snow, in other words.

It still lives in people's minds and memories.

In fact, some are exhibiting severe signs of snow envy. And who can blame them?

While Roanoke remains green and brown, Shenandoah Valley resorts are open for skiing. New England and the Pacific Northwest got dumped on. Even the palm tree-studded, desert town of Las Vegas has snow.

Now it's our turn, the hopeful say.

"I just want to see white stuff all around," said Blair Ramsey of Roanoke, spreading out her arms like an angel.

Her walking buddy on the Roanoke River Greenway, Susan Funk, has vivid memories of the 1996 blizzard that deposited more than 20 inches in the valley.

"It was just incredible," Funk recalled.

That was then. This is now. After hefty snows for decades, snow totals fell after the late 1990s like the final flakes of a storm. The last decent storm, 7.8 inches, fell on Feb. 27 and 28, 2005.

Last year's valleywide snowfall total was 4.9 inches. The year before we got 3.4 inches.

The calendar says it's winter again.

As he paused Sunday, the first official day of winter, Charlie Duvall of Botetourt County expressed doubt that snow is coming.

"We used to get snows all the time," said Duvall, an area resident since 1966. "You'd get one around Thanksgiving, two or three inches in December and the majority of it in January and February. Now, it's all ice ... sleet and freezing rain."

The Duvalls -- Charlie, wife Deborah and daughters Heather and Ally -- are leaving in a few days for Wintergreen Resort, where the forecast is for freezing overnight temperatures that turn water plumes into man-made snow. They were out shopping for their gear at Back Country Ski and Sports in Salem.

Let it snow -- just not on the interstates, said truck driver Joe Snead, who was on the greenway during a visit from Davidson, N.C. He said snowy conditions and inexperienced drivers create conditions for commercial truckers he would rather not face.

But snow helps some business people, and they want all they can get. Alex Fauerbach is lawn maintenance accounts manager and a part-time plow driver at Valley Landscaping in Christiansburg.

"I definitely think we're going to have a decent winter," he said, naming his source as "The Farmer's Almanac." "Three or four big snows maybe 4 inches or so. ... For our company that would be great."

Another believer is Dave Hurley. He said some believe nature signals snow is coming with a heavy acorn load.

At his house in Roanoke this fall, "you couldn't even move because of all the acorns on the ground," he said. "Usually the squirrels take them away. Too many for the squirrels."

Hurley was cooling off after a run on the greenway with Steve Surratt, who disagreed.

Snow "is totally random. I don't think there's any way to predict it at all," Surratt told Hurley.

Diane Rodil, the third runner in the trio, said she and her family moved from Tampa., Fla., in 2003 believing a valley like Roanoke at 1,000 feet would offer a winter wonderland.

"My daughter's got a toboggan that I bought her three years ago that hasn't been used," she said.

Just missing heavy storms again and again

Roanoke has not had 1 foot of snow in a single snowstorm since February 1996, part of a winter that produced three such snows and 56 inches total. Roanokers have grown used to watching others close by, or in places that don’t frequently get snow, get buried.

Jan. 25, 2000: A storm moving up the East Coast sweeps snow westward into much of Virginia and the Carolinas. Raleigh, N.C., gets 2 feet of snow, Richmond a foot. While 8 inches fall as close as Lynchburg, the Roanoke and New River valleys get nothing.

Feb. 16-17, 2003: While 2002-03 remains Southwest Virginia’s snowiest winter of the 2000s, the season’s biggest snowstorm was a big miss, or rather, a big mess. The storm on President’s Day deposits 1 to 3 feet on Northern Virginia. Southwest Virginia gets sleet and ice.

Feb. 27, 2004: Dry air eats up northward advancing moisture from a low-pressure system moving eastward south of Virginia, a typically favorable path for snow. But in North Carolina, the Charlotte area gets a foot.

Dec. 24-26, 2004: South Texas gets up to 10 inches of snow on Christmas Eve, with Brownsville, at Texas’ southern tip, seeing its first measurable snow in more than 100 years. New Orleans sees snow on Christmas Day, and on the day after Christmas, the same storm dumps up to 10 inches in Virginia’s Hampton Roads area.

Feb. 11, 2006: New York City sees its all-time record 24-hour snow of 27 inches. While Roanoke and surrounding areas get 4-7 inches of snow, the storm winds up just a little too late for foot-deep snows in Southwest Virginia. November-December 2008: Rare snows have fallen in New Orleans and Las Vegas, but only a few snow showers have made it to the Roanoke Valley, leaving only a dusting or two.