The Inter-Mountain photo by Taylor McKinnie A worker with the City of Elkins Operations Department operates a construction plow to clear snow from Wilson Street on Monday morning.

ELKINS — The local region was blanketed by snow and ice all day Sunday and on Monday morning, including a location in Tucker County that had the most snow reported in the state.

18.3 inches of snow was reported on Monday in Canaan Heights, in the Canaan Valley area, according to the National Weather Service. That total was the highest amount of snow reported in West Virginia Monday as of press time. In nearby Davis, between 4.5 and 16.6 inches of snow were reported on Sunday.

In Randolph County, the NWS reports that 0.7 to 4 inches of snow were reported in the Elkins area on Sunday, while 3.1 inches were reported in Dailey, and 4 inches were reported in Coalton.

A total of 4.5 inches of snow was reported to the NWS in Buckhannon on Sunday. In Pocahontas County, 1 inch of snow was reported in Snowshoe on Sunday, while 5 inches were reported in Durbin on Monday.

As of press time, no snow amounts in Barbour County had been reported to the NWS.

The NWS predicted less than 1 inch of snow accumulation Monday night for most of Randolph and Tucker counties and parts of Barbour, Upshur and Pocahontas counties.

An Extreme Cold Warning was issued for Randolph, Barbour, Upshur, Tucker and Pocahontas counties from 7 p.m. on Monday until noon today.

The NWS states that “dangerously cold” wind chills as low as 17 below zero are expected in Randolph, Barbour, Upshur and Pocahontas counties. In Tucker County, dangerously cold wind chills as low as 25 below zero are expected.

Snow and ice brought on by Winter Storm Fern left thousands of West Virginia residents without power over the weekend, with 18,693 homes and businesses across the Mountain State were still without electricity Monday afternoon. No outages were reported in Randolph or surrounding counties.

Of the four main utilities in West Virginia, Appalachian Power Company had the most outages with 17,551. Kanawha County was the most affected by the weekend weather, as 13,888 customers were still without power.

Lincoln County (1,590), Putnam (616), Nicholas (581), Roane (365), Clay (331), Boone (301), and Mingo (296) were the other countries dealing with power outages.

As of Monday afternoon, West Virginia had the ninth most outages in the United States. According to the Appalachian Power website, the company has 3,000 field workers across 57 counties in West Virginia assessing damages and restoring power. 

The storm also canceled school in all of the state’s 55 counties on Monday. Of the cancellations, 15 schools had non-traditional instruction days, including schools in Pocahontas County, meaning students learn from home remotely via computer.

Traditional snow days were called for school districts in Randolph County, Tucker County, Barbour County and Upshur County. The Randolph County Board of Education Central Office was also closed due to the weather conditions.

On Friday, Gov. Patrick Morrisey declared a state of emergency for all 55 counties and formally requested that President Donald Trump issue a Presidential Emergency Disaster Declaration for the State of West Virginia.

On Monday, circuit courts, family courts and magistrate courts in 54 counties were closed due to the continuing winter weather. Magistrate judges were to be on call in case of emergencies in their counties.

In Kanawha County, while the circuit court and family court were both closed on Monday, the county magistrate court operated on limited hours from noon to 4 p.m. The Kanawha County Magistrate Court was also open on Sunday from noon until 5 p.m.

The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley
Elkins Middle School custodians Nancy Coberly, left, and Tim Arbogast clear ice and snow from a set of steps at EMS on Monday morning. Winter Storm Fern dumped ice and snow across the area over the weekend.

The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley
City of Elkins employees took to the streets with heavy equipment Monday morning to remove some of the ice and snow that blanketed streets and alleys across the city. A city worker, above, scrapes up some snow at the entrance of Hinkle Street.