Another snow day for Mon Schools

Jan. 7 – Monongalia County students will get another snow day on Wednesday, Jan. 8, thanks to Winter Storm Blair.

That’s three in a row, thanks to the icy storm that hit the region Sunday evening and has continued ever since.

And there’s plenty of ice on Mon’s back roads right now, said Eddie Campbell Jr., Mon’s school principal.

That’s why he called the schools in advance.

“If we had left on Wednesday, we would still have 24 bus routes that we couldn’t run,” he said. “That’s pretty significant.”

Also pretty frustrating, Campbell said.

With all 55 counties still under a state of emergency, that means West Virginia Department of Transportation salt trucks will have to focus on highways and major roads first, the superintendent added.

The consistently cold temperatures that are Blair’s byproduct also mean the snow and ice aren’t going away any time soon.

Traces of severe weather this week could also add a layer of 1 to 2 inches over what’s already there – and the bitterly cold nights AccuWeather is calling for this week aren’t helping either.

Wednesday’s forecast high of 26 also includes snow showers and a low of 15, the meteorologist said.

According to AccuWeather meteorologists, the mercury temperature could drop as low as 5 degrees Thursday evening, and daytime temperatures will eventually rise back to around 30 degrees over the weekend.

“I can’t remember three snow days in a row in a long time,” said Campbell, a former principal at a high school just below the Arctic Circle in Alaska.

“And that’s just from a storm.”