Severe storms rip through area

Matthew Hill
Register-Herald Reporter

May 11, 2008 10:14 pm

— Mother Nature was not in a celebratory mood for the centennial celebration of Mother’s Day. In fact, she seemed all too willing to rain on the proverbial parades of myriad Mountain State mothers during their special day.
Powerful thunderstorms and high winds whipped the Mountain State on Sunday, downing trees and knocking out power to thousands of state residents. Even more frightening was the threat of tornadoes that hovered over parts of West Virginia during the early afternoon hours, although none materialized, according to the National Weather Service.
“Countless trees down and power outages everywhere,” said one overwhelmed Fayette County 911 dispatcher. Fayette, Nicholas and Raleigh counties seemed to be the hardest hit by Sunday’s stormy weather. “We’re keeping our heads above water,” a Nicholas County dispatcher stated optimistically.
“One end of the county to the other,” a Raleigh County dispatcher declared, illustrating the extent of his county’s weather-related travails.
Wyoming County emergency dispatchers told of a tree on a telephone line in Clear Fork. “We’re still here,” quipped one dispatcher. “We had a storm roll through. It was not as bad as predicted but not all that nice either. We got drenched, but that was about it.”
Monroe County reported a power outage Sunday morning in Peterstown, but the cause was unclear, said a 911 employee. Greenbrier County had no reports of damage. “We actually haven’t had any (trouble) down here. It seems that everyone around us was having stuff. There’s nothing reported down here,” a Summers County dispatcher said.
At 4 p.m., American Electric Power’s Web site reported 8,907 without electricity in Fayette County and 2,564 power-deprived in Nicholas County. Raleigh County had 2,109 without power at that time, while Greenbrier County showed 120. Statewide, at least 52,000 customers were reported to be without power at one point Sunday.
As of 9 p.m., Greenbrier County had all of its electricity restored, while the other three counties had 5,307, 2,336 and 2,405 without power respectively.
According to NWS meteorologist Nick Webb, a funnel cloud formation was sighted 12 miles north-northeast of Fayetteville near Miller Ridge Road, but it didn’t touch down. Mingo County was placed under a tornado warning, but Webb said that he had received no reports of any tornadoes there. Swaths of southern West Virginia were under a tornado watch until 3 p.m. Sunday, and a wind advisory was set to expire at 9 p.m.
“We have an upper level system with somewhat of a weak surface low attached to it in Ohio,” he stated, explaining what pushed several lines of storms into West Virginia. He directly connected Sunday’s Mountain State weather with a line of deadly storms that killed at least 21 people in Georgia, Missouri and Oklahoma over the weekend.
“It’s the same system as those other states. There’s just more instability down there, as usual. There have been some strong midlevel systems come down through the Plains. Those create steep lapse rates (greater increases and decreases of temperature highs). Those states have more instability and more moisture influx from the Gulf of Mexico,” Webb noted.
The Beckley area should expect showers today, said Webb, with those clearing out sometime tonight. Tuesday should be “halfway decent,” he added, for the West Virginia primary. Monday’s high of 51 degrees should warm to 69 degrees for Tuesday.
-- E-mail: mhill@register-herald.com
The Associated Press contributed to this story.