Winter Weather — Western Greenbrier, West Virginia

2014-11-01 · Western Greenbrier, West Virginia

Event narrative

The McRoss COOP observer reported 1.1 inch of snow while the West Virginia Department of Highways observed 1.0 inch of snow at Quinwood. Elsewhere in western Greenbrier county, snow amounts were less than one inch.

Wider weather episode

A very high amplitude upper atmospheric pattern featured equally deep troughs in the western and eastern U.S. Within the eastern U.S. trough, was a vigorous Alberta clipper that intensified immensely as it plunged into the southeast states into the base of the upper trough. Meanwhile...a large nearly 1040mb Canadian High was plunging into the central and eastern U.S. on the back side of the developing storm system in the southeast states. The combination of these features brought an early season snowfall principally to the Appalachian mountains of eastern Tennessee, far southwest Virginia, and northwest North Carolina. Light snow also fell in the mountains of eastern West Virginia, but the storm system tracked too far south for any significant amounts in that region. Snowfall amounts were generally around 1 inch or less, except 1 to 3 inch range across this region...with some higher totals of 4 to 6 inches in the higher elevations of northwest North Carolina. Strong and gusty northwest winds accompanied the snow in these areas causing scattered power outages. Because of warm temperatures within the preceding days and the early season time of the event, roads and travel conditions were not significantly impacted.

Here are some of the snow reports from southeast West Virginia from the afternoon of November 1, 2014. These denote the high end of the event in these counties. Note, the event actually began during the afternoon of October 31st.

Greenbrier (McRoss) - 1.1 inch,

Mercer (Bluefield) - 3.0 inches.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 550161. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.