“This will be a short-lived cold blast and by the middle of next week we should see temperatures back to where they should be this time of year,” Accuweather Meteorologist Tom Kines predicted on Friday.
“Obviously we had a very strong front come through overnight. It was up in the 40s out ahead of it and then the front came through and temperatures plummeted and now they are down to zero,” he said. “It’s not too often we get temperature swings like this, so the fact that the temperatures plummeted that much that quickly is rather unusual.”
This situation was brought on, in part, by a “bomb cyclone” or a storm that strengthens rapidly.
“When you get a rapidly strengthening storm you also get a lot of wind with that,” Kines said. “In this case there happened to be some really cold air coming down out of Canada and it kind of joined forces with another big storm and that storm pulled it into the U.S. – that’s what we are experiencing now.”
Kines said it’s going to stay cold over the holiday weekend, but the wind will diminish some over the weekend.
“So even though it will be cold, it won’t be as brutal as [Friday] was,” he said. “Last minute shoppers should be fine on the roads today.”
The good news is the temperatures early next week will start to moderate.
“Fortunately we are not locked in the icebox for a couple of weeks,” Kines said. “But for now definitely bundle up. It’s going to feel like it is below zero probably for a good chunk of the weekend.”
With the temperatures dropping so quickly, icy conditions were a concern for commuters Friday morning, keeping emergency responders on their toes.
A Monongalia County Emergency Management Agency Supervisor said that as of 3 p.m. Friday afternoon, the 911 call center had received an estimated 20 calls since 6 a.m. to assist motorists with accidents or disabled vehicles.
Power outages were also prevalent throughout the area, leaving many without power and creating hazardous situations for power crews working to restore it.
At approximately 1 p.m. on Friday, Mon Power Spokesperson Hannah Catlett said power crews were working to restore power to about 1,500 customers in Monongalia County, with most of them being in Morgantown. She said the company brought in contractors to help with work in that area.
Catlett said they had about 100 linemen out working to restore power to West Virginia customers affected by the winter storm.
In Preston County at that time, crews were working to restore power to around 350 customers, with the highest number of outages reported in Bruceton Mills, Catlett said.
“The high winds remain a challenge, because we cannot safely put a crew member in certain bucket trucks when wind speeds are too high,” she explained. “Icy road conditions have also affected our crews’ ability to access all the damage done by the storm. We are working as quickly and safely as possible to get the power back on for all customers.
As of Friday afternoon, Catlett said crews were still assessing the damage and did not have an estimated time of restoration for the area.
