Bluefield Daily Telegraph
— The relentless winter of 2010 has set a new modern day all-time snowfall record for the city of Bluefield
Bluefield is now reporting 80 inches of snow for the season, according to the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, Va. That’s a new modern day record based upon the data maintained by the National Weather Service, which is the official record-keeping source for our region.
The old record of 77.8 inches was buried under several inches of fresh snow this past weekend. And the snow isn’t finished yet. The new record of 80 inches could climb to 82 or 83 inches by the end of today.
Bluefield also set a new snowfall record for the month of February. Bluefield’s 32.7 inches of snow broke the previous February record of 31 inches of snow in 1960, according to the Associated Press.
Few in our region are celebrating this record-breaking winter. It’s been a long, cold and miserable winter without end. The nightmare began on the afternoon of Dec. 18, 2009, when the city of Bluefield set a new single day snowfall record of 13.3 inches of wet, heavy snow courtesy of a monster storm that left thousands across the region without electricity and left hundreds of motorists stranded on the West Virginia Turnpike for more than 12 hours on the week before Christmas.
The monster storm proved to be just the beginning of a woeful winter. What followed in the days, weeks and months ahead was bitterly cold arctic air, one big snow storm after another, an ice storm and even a blizzard.
Road crews across our region worked around the clock for more than three months fighting what was essentially a losing battle against Old Man Winter. Citizens were forced to shovel and dig their driveways out on an almost daily basis. School systems across our region lost dozens of school days and hundreds of instructional hours thanks to the nasty weather outside.
Today, we can finally see light at the end of the arctic tunnel. The first day of spring is only 18 days away, and the extended forecast from the National Weather Service looks promising. Temperatures will climb into the mid 40s on Saturday, and reach about 50 on Sunday and Monday.
However, it would be naive to think that winter is over. It isn’t. In all likelihood, we will see more snow — maybe even another big storm or two. However, we can take comfort in knowing that spring is much closer today than it was a month or two ago.
Folks across southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia are tough skinned. We have endured floods, blizzards, ice storms and monster storms.
We can survive another 18 days of winter. We will take comfort in knowing that spring is near.
