BLUEFIELD — A hard rain is going to fall today, bringing with it as much as an inch of new precipitation according to weather forecasters with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, Va.
“The rainfall rate will all depend on where the convection forms,” Ken Kastor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service said. “Right now, the main focus of the upcoming rain event will be a little north of us in northern West Virginia. However, the crux will be to watch how the storm evolves. Complex systems — and they’re all complex systems — are difficult to predict accurately at this point. For now, there is a storm system on the horizon.”
Kastor said the rain should be steady today with the storm increasing in intensity through the afternoon and into this evening. The Weather Service is predicting a 50 percent chance of rain on Saturday, 60 percent chance Saturday night and 50 percent chance on Sunday. Rain remains in the forecast until Monday evening.
“It’s a good thing that we didn’t have this rain a little earlier in the week when we still had a lot of snow on the ground in southern West Virginia,” Kastor said. “At this point, most of that snow has already melted. However, there’s still a lot of snow on the ground in the Greenbrier River valley. There’s a potential for new watches and warnings in that area as we head into the weekend.”
The melt-off has already contributed to swollen mountain streams in the region as well as some mud and rock slides that have blocked private roads, but no public roads in Mercer County thus far. “We had a couple of slides on roads in McDowell County (on Wednesday), but none so far in Mercer blocking the road,” Tom Camden, District 10 administrator of the West Virginia Department of Highways said Thursday afternoon.
“It’s been a hard winter,” Camden said. “We have several gravel roads in the area that need some attention, and we are grading those roads where we can. Pot holes are also a concern for everyone.”
Camden explained the difference between a “slide” and a “slip.” He said that a slide is when material like mud, trees, rocks and debris slides into a roadway and a slip is when the road itself gives way. During rain events, DOH crews are on the look-out for both, he said.
– Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com
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