CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The first significant snowfall of the winter season is set to hit the Mountain State this week.
While the weekend had been calm weather-wise, a strong storm system is approaching Sunday night into Monday and will dump rain across the state all day Monday.
Nick Webb, a National Weather Service (NWS) Charleston meteorologist told MetroNews that temperatures will then fall and the rain showers will turn to steady snow showers Monday night.
“Once this system pulls north on Monday, it’ll wrap cold air behind it and we will gradually see a switch to snow Monday afternoon from west to east, ” he said.
Webb said the lowlands and river valleys may see up to two inches of snow into Tuesday with northern parts of West Virginia and mountainous regions seeing more. He said there are many factors into the accumulation of the snow.
“Once you get into the lower elevations, we are dealing with surface temperatures, ground temperatures. We are going to be dealing with half an inch to an inch of rain on the front end of this system. We will have to take that into account as well,” Webb said.
A slow warming trend will occur for the second half of the week with high temperatures climbing back into the 40s.
Webb said the national center for the NWS forecasted seasonal probabilities for the Kanawha Valley and predicted a greater chance of above-average temperatures for the winter.