Powerful winds knocked off power to nearly 82,000 customers of Appalachian Power and Mon Power in West Virginia early Friday morning.

Appalachian Power reported nearly 39,000 customers without service as of 5:30 a.m.

There are more than 10,000 customers without service in Kanawha County. High outage numbers were also reported in Logan, Mingo, Wyoming, Raleigh and Putnam counties.

The hardest hit areas in the Mon Power system, which listed 43,000 customers without service at 5:30 a.m., included Taylor, Marion, Harrison, Calhoun and Braxton County. The more than 4,000 customers without service in Calhoun County represents 97 percent of Mon Power customers there.

Wind gusts recorded from the storm included 53 mph in both Charleston and Beckley. Wind was gusting at 48 mph in South Charleston.

“It was a basically a squall line in front of a cold front,” National Weather Service Meteorologist James Zvolensky told MetroNews early Friday morning. “It was a sharp cold front so the squall line was a little intense.”

The National Weather Service has a wind advisory in effect through the day Friday for the eastern mountains of West Virginia. Some of the highest elevations are under a high wind warning.

“It will still be gusty along that reinforcing cold front, not what we saw before with the squall line but i’s still going to be breezy. We are expecting around 30 to 40 mile-per-hour winds,” Zvolensky said.

Temperatures will dive toward the freezing mark during the day.

Appalachian Power issued a statement Thursday afternoon that said the utility was preparing for possible outages.

“Frequent gusts of 45–55 mph are expected through much of Friday, Dec. 19, with localized gusts as high as 60 mph in southwest Virginia between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.,” Appalachian Power said.

Zvolensky said it’s a little unusual to have that intense of a storm like the one that moved through Friday morning.

“It’s just because of the sharp cold front. We don’t usually see severe wind storms during this time of the year,” he said.

Calhoun and Ritchie counties had closed school for the day by 5:30 a.m. Kanawha County closed a half dozen schools in South Charleston and South Hills area of Charleston. Two elementary schools were also closed in eastern Kanawha County.  All because of no power.