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Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 12:41PM

First snow 2008 - photos

By DAN ROBINSON

Editor/Photographer

These images were taken this morning between 8:00AM and 10:30AM around Beckley, Flat Top, Ghent, Shady Spring and Mossy, West Virginia.

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Every once in a while a gust of wind would kick up a cloud of blowing snow off of the trees. The snow stopped falling before dawn, and the wind was quickly removing a lot of the snow from the trees. By the time the sun was up, a large amount of the tree-borne snow was gone. The only places it remained was on the east-facing slopes that were somewhat shielded from the wind.

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This is at the Shady Spring exit on I-64, looking northwest. The mountains in the distance are about 25 miles away.

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The best measure of the total accumulation overnight was on parked cars. I didn't want to go messing with people's vehicles, so I didn't get a physical measurement - but just visually estimating, it looks like just under 2 inches. Since my car was running all night, I didn't keep any more than a dusting on the roof.

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This next image is the mountain at Mossy along I-77, showing the changeover line clearly (at around 2,200 feet). Beckley is above this line at 2,500 feet, about 20 miles to the east of here. As is usually does, the temperature rose rapidly coming off of the Beckley plateau, to about 38°F where I was standing taking this picture. So between the snow line and my location was a 6 degree gradient. I-77 crossed the snow line just east of Pax.

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Beautiful set, Dan.
- Posted by Dann Cianca from Denver, Colorado

These are perhaps the best autumn to winter transition pictures i've ever seen!
- Posted by Paul from Decatur, IL

Dan, very cool images. I have rarely seen a nice snow-no snow line in the East. I really like the white dusting contrasted to the fall colors.
- Posted by Bill from Richmond, VA