CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A southern snow storm which is expected to dump a lot of snow on southern and southwest Virginia along with western North Carolina will probably not cause too much impact to West Virginia.
“We’re still looking at some snow in the very southern tip of West Virginia,” said Meteorologist Mike Zwier with the National Weather Service in Charleston. “McDowell, Mercer, Summers, and over into Monroe County will be the best chance of seeing that.”
A mix of winter storm watches and winter storm warnings are in effect for those counties starting tonight and extending into Sunday. The most those areas of West Virginia are expecting will be 1 to 3 inches of snow. Forecasters have grown more confident in the prediction after worrying it could shift and bring a large amount of snow north and into West Virginia.
“We’re getting much more confident in where this will hit,” he explained. “There could still be a shift of 20 miles or so which might move it up into Raleigh or Wyoming County just a bit, but the possibility of a huge shift we were thinking about it slimming down.”
Further south into Virginia and West Virginia the forecast calls for snowfall totals to top six inches or more in some of those areas. The snow is expected to be heavy and wet and create the possibility of a lot power outages across western counties of Virginia and North Carolina.
Zwier said the next chance for snow in West Virginia is likely next weekend, but it may be too far out to predict with any certainty.