Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times

An unidentified man pedals down the sidewalk on Campbell Avenue in downtown Roanoke on Christmas Day. The steady rain did not freeze in Roanoke, and the plowed snow melted slowly.

An ice storm that forecasters expected to pummel Southwest Virginia on Christmas morning didn't materialize for most because of warmer air from the south and east, according to the National Weather Service in Blacksburg.

However, the places where ice did accumulate Floyd County, for instance experienced power outages.

Friday afternoon, more than 5,400 Appalachian Power Co. customers were without electricity, 3,300 of them in Floyd County. A 2:30 p.m. report listed 480 customers without power in Roanoke County; 400 in Montgomery County; 350 in Franklin County; and 900 in Patrick County.

On Thursday, forecasters had anticipated a storm would bring a quarter-inch or more of ice to most of Southwest Virginia beginning after midnight Friday, when temperatures were below freezing.

But warmer air was strong enough to keep the ice confined mostly to the top of the Blue Ridge, said Jan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Freezing rain was reported in Roanoke and Blacksburg for a few hours Christmas morning, but temperatures warmed above freezing at both locations by midmorning, and any minor glaze that had developed on trees and car tops quickly melted.

The above-freezing temperatures kept the heavy ice from occurring, but the temperatures weren't so high that they allowed the rain to melt a lot of the snow, Jackson said. That prevented flooding.

"It's probably the best we could have hoped for," Jackson said.

-- Rex Bowman and Kevin Myatt