CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – It’s been two days since Winter Storm Blair started turning the Mountain State into a winter wonderland. So, how much snow and ice did we get in West Virginia?
Due to the multiple components of the snowstorm, not everywhere in West Virginia saw the same snowfall totals. In some cases, some even saw more ice than snow. Ice totals, while creating slick conditions were not as thick as snow totals, with practically all parts of the state seeing less than an inch of ice, according to the National Weather Service.
Counties in the southern half of the state received more ice totals than in the north due to the warm punch of air aloft, turning snow into freezing rain for a time, according to our StormTracker 13 Meteorologists. West Virginia and Kentucky both remain in states of emergency, and several Ohio counties are under snow level emergencies, although, some local authorities are starting to lower those levels.
According to the NWS, the Thomas area of Tucker County saw the most snowfall with 19″ as of about 7:45 a.m. Tuesday. We have parts of Wood County reporting around a foot and a half of snow as of 9 p.m. last night, whereas some areas saw lower totals. In one area of Randolph County, 5.5″ were recorded, and only 5″ in part of Calhoun County. Kanawha and Putnam Counties each saw around 8″ near South Charleston and Kenna, respectively, and Ripley in Jackson County saw around 7″, according to the NWS.
Along with that snow, some more southern counties also saw plain rain and some of that turned to ice. According to the NWS, on Monday morning, Huntington reported rain between 1.27″-1.47″ depending on where you are in the city, and the Alum Creek and South Charleston areas saw around 1.5″-1.54″ by that same time frame. Much of that rain turned into healthy accumulations of ice.
Some southern counties, however, did see lower totals of ice and freezing rain, such as McDowell with about 0.75″-0.84″, or Mingo County which saw right around 0.8″ to 0.82″ by Monday morning.
The NWS shows there hasn’t been a measurable amount of more ice accumulating in the past 12 hours. According to our StormTracker 13 team, some spotty snow showers are possible on Tuesday and Wednesday, but we’re mostly looking at cloudy skies and highs only reaching the mid to upper 20s. Only the high mountains of West Virginia should see accumulating snow through Thursday.
To see how much snow fell in your town, visit the just click here and type your town into the upper right-hand search bar.
West Virginia Capital City snowfall fun facts:
Sunday’s snowfall for the NWS-Charleston service area actually set a new NWS record for the day. By Sunday, a total of 5.5″ of snow had been recorded in Charleston, breaking the old record of 3.8″ set in 1972.
According to the NWS, 2022 still holds the record for Jan. 6 snowfall in Charleston at 8.3″ The record for Tuesday, Jan. 7, was set back in 1996 with 12.9″ of snow in Charleston.
For the month of January, the date of Jan. 4, 1994, holds the highest record with 15.5″ of snow in Charleston. On the other hand, Jan. 11, 1987, holds the lowest record on the list with 2.2″ as the most snow that has ever fallen on that date. With another storm system heading in this weekend, could Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025, beat that record?
The NWS says the record snowfalls for the dates of Jan. 2 and Jan. 3 haven’t been broken since, respectively, 6″ in 1918 and 5″ in 1919.