A line of showers and thunderstorms will be moving east through the overnight hours of Sunday and it will continue through Monday. The line should reach Southern West Virginia early Monday morning, likely before 8 AM. There is severe thunderstorm potential with this line. However, the majority of this severe weather will be from Maryland down to South Carolina. The issue with West Virginia as a whole is the timing in which this line comes through, which will lead to very minimal energy available for these storms to be severe. However, across Pocahontas to Monroe Counties, energy could be a little higher as storms are expected to make it into that area after sunrise. Most of this should just be gusty winds, although a couple severe thunderstorm warnings for wind can’t be ruled out across the Greenbrier Valley to the Virginia state line.
In the photo below:
Light Green represents general thunderstorms.
Dark Green represents a level 1/5 severe weather risk.
Yellow represents a level 2/5 severe weather risk.
Brown represents a level 3/5 severe weather risk.
The main risk for Southern West Virginia will be the wind with the line as it passes through, most should stay below severe limits of 58 mph. The hail and tornado threat appear low at this time.
Unfortunately, we do not stop with the severe weather, as right behind the cold front we should have some snow falling throughout the region. Temperatures will plummet all day Monday, which will lead to snow falling by Monday afternoon. Models are very variable at the moment for how much snow will fall, but for Beckley we are leaning 1-3 inches. The maximum solution is currently 5 inches, with a 10% chance of that happening.
Some models are starting to show more snow than they had previously and that is something we will continue to watch heading into Monday to see if that’s a trend, or a one off thing.
Most of the snow that does accumulate though, should be confined to the higher elevations of the mountains. 1-3 inches in that blue with a dusting to an inch forecasted for the white areas across the Greenbrier Valley and the Southern Coalfields.
Looking ahead to the full 7 day forecast though, after this cold front passes through Monday, a cold St. Patrick’s Day will eventually warm back up to near/above average temperatures by late-week. Rain chances also look fairly low the rest of the 7 day period.
