CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Where you are in West Virginia is the determining factor on how much impact Winter Storm Stella has had on your life. The Nor’easter rolled into the northeastern United States Tuesday morning with high winds and heavy snowfall, but there was a very clear line for the snowfall accumulation.
“It’s a tale of two West Virginia’s,” said Meteorologist Maura Casey with the National Weather Service in Charleston. “In the Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg area there was nothing. In the Clarksburg-Beckley elevation zone there were three to five inches. The mountains got considerably more up to a foot or so, but east of the Continental Divide we have widespread amounts of eight to 12 inches.”
Casey said the accumulation in the eastern panhandle counties came as no surprise because they were much closer to the edge of the system. She said it’s hard to predict the impact of this kind of storm at this time of year.
“When we’re on the periphery of a large scale system like this it doesn’t take much of a track difference to get some varying amounts of snow,” she said on MetroNews Talkline.
The eastern panhandle counties can expect to receive a couple of more inches of snow before the system winds up and exits the state on Tuesday night. However, steady and brisk winds will remain dn temperatures statewide will be below freezing for much of the time.