Published: November 23, 2008 01:51 am            

Snowy winter ahead

Local experts say winters stay pretty constant in area

FAIRMONT — Its something we hear about nearly every day.

Is the weather really changing or, as many put it, getting warmer?

It comes in many different forms, from commercials and lectures to movies by former vice presidents, but global warming is on the lips of nearly everyone.

This year typified those thoughts as 60- and 70-degree days in late November had some thinking winter would never arrive.

But cold weather did, as always, and brought with it snow and Marion County school children’s first snow day of the school year last week.

Is the area’s weather really changing?

Fairmont street director Joe Feltz is someone who keeps a close eye on the weather.

It’s his job to send out the city’s fleet of salt and cinder trucks when the snow and ice start to threaten.

“What we do when we’re getting ready to make our cinder and salt purchases is go back and look at weather in the previous years,” Feltz said. “We look at the storms in the last five years or so, and we buy our supplies based off of that.

“It’s stayed pretty much the same,” Feltz said of the city’s orders for salt and cinders. “We haven’t seen a lot of change.”

Mike Roncone, Marion County supervisor for the state Division of Highways, said that when deciding on how much salt and cinders are needed, they like to base it on what the division used the previous year. Future weather forecasts still remain a factor, but the load has been pretty constant for the past few years.

In addition to the latest technology, the DOH uses to study weather patterns and analyze previous year’s data, Roncone pointed to the Old Farmer’s Almanac as predicting a bad winter.

“Let’s put it this way, last year was a mild winter,” Roncone said. “But we still have to treat the roads if we have an inch of snow or a foot. The almanac says this is going to be a bad year. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

The Farmer’s Almanac predicts an “exceptionally cold December with above normal snowfall” over the course of the winter.

“We’ve been busy already,” Roncone said about the area’s recent winter weather. “We’ve been running three shifts now for about a week and will continue to run three throughout the winter.”

West Virginia might not be in danger of being inundated by rising seas because of melting polar ice caps like some scientists warn some coastal cities may face down the road. But just because the state is landlocked doesn’t mean that it is immune from the effects.

Scientists define global warming as an overall increase in world temperatures, which may be caused by heat being trapped by greenhouse gases.

But where has that left the area?

According to billing statements from Dominion Hope, the company that supplies most North Central West Virginias with natural gas, the average temperatures per month have gone up slightly from 2006 to 2008.

Meteorologists from Accuweather agree.

“It looks like temperatures are slowly turning upward across the U.S. as a whole,” said a meteorologist from Accuweather.com. “There hasn’t been any extreme shifts in either direction, but instead a gradual increase over the past several years.”

Accuweather, established in 1962, bills itself as the world’s weather authority. It provides local forecasts for everywhere in the United States and more than 2 million locations worldwide. Its headquarters in State College, Pa., is home to the greatest number of forecast meteorologists in one location anywhere in the world.

“I get an updated forecast online, so I know what to expect in the next few days,” Feltz said. “We try to leave nothing to luck, that’s our motto around here. We’re on call to Dec. 6, so whenever it starts to get bad, we get out to treat the streets.”

December of 2007 showed a vast rise in temperatures in the area. During the second week of the month, the surrounding areas were drenched by a huge rainstorm that caused a mass of flooding in Marion County only to see snow fly within a week.

If you’re looking for proof on rising temperatures in the school system, you won’t find it.

Each one of West Virginia’s 55 counties have a limited number of “snow days” built into the curriculum.

School is called off for a variety of reasons during the winter months not just because of snow. Icy roads as well as extremely cold temperatures are also culprits in giving area children the day at home.

In 2007, Marion County exceeded the allotted snow days by early January. By state law, school cannot begin before Aug. 26 or be in session beyond June 10.

Because the allotted days were used up early, four “out of school environment days” had to be spent getting children into the classroom to make up for the missed days.

The school system already experienced its first cancellation of classes Nov. 18.

West Virginia’s ski resorts have reported plenty of early snow and cold temperatures already this year.

In previous years, the resorts usually don’t open until after Thanksgiving. But this year Snowshoe Mountain opened the season on Friday, Nov. 22, after getting 31 inches of snow recently.

Spokeswoman Laura Parquette said the resort has seen more snow already this year than some resorts saw all of last season.

The reality is West Virginia is a temperate state with hot summers and cold winters. While the overall average temperatures may be creeping up as the years go by, it’s hard to tell.

“In the last several years, we’ve had the freak snowstorms that wiped us out, but in reality, it’s pretty much unchanged,” Feltz said. “Other than the snow last October, we’ve been pretty quiet on getting hit early.”

And what’s forecast for the coming week?

You guessed it ... cold with plenty of chances for snow.

E-mail Mike Bowen at mbowen@timeswv.com.

        

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