CHARLESTON, W.Va. — While winter itself hasn’t made its way in yet, the winter-like weather certainly has.
National Weather Service Meteorologist in Charleston Simone Lewis said on MetroNews Talkline Thursday that West Virginians will see a low pressure system from the Great Lakes region move across the Mountain State over the next few days.
Lewis said the system will bring in much colder air as well as light precipitation overspreading the state with some areas already transitioning to snow.
Simone Lewis
She said the higher elevations will get most of that snow.
“The bulk of the accumulations are in the mountainous counties, so generally two thousand feet and above is where we’re going to see our more significant snow accumulations,” said Lewis.
She said residents at 2,000 feet in elevation can expect to see somewhere around 2 to 6 inches, while further up in elevation at around 2,500 feet, there could be quite a bit more snow at 8 to 14 inches.
But, Lewis said anywhere at 3,000 feet or higher such as places like Snowshoe will get the most accumulations bringing in a good 12 to 18 inches.
She said as for the lower elevations, residents there will see much less snow.
“The ground temperatures are a lot warmer across the lower elevations, so a decent amount of snow that we receive across those areas is probably going to melt or just provide a light coding along grassy surfaces,” she said.
Lewis said, however, that these snow accumulations will most likely not be sticking around long. She said it will probably start to melt by Sunday due to temperatures warming back up again.
“By Sunday we are looking at temperatures, particularly across the low-lands, in the 50s, and the mountains will generally top out in the 40s,” she said.
Lewis said there is another system moving in by next week, but it just looks to be some rain.
She said after a very dry several months, these rain and snow systems will at least help replenish the ground some.
“We should be seeing some improvements in the drought conditions over this next week, it’s not going to completely eliminate the drought conditions, but we are looking forward to some improvements in those conditions,” said Lewis.
Experts are predicting that winter temperatures will stay around 33% to 40% above average this year in West Virginia with a fairly normal amount of snowfall expected.