The interesting thing about weather in West Virginia is that it varies a lot more than you might expect.

WV is in the middle of a mountain range, so you would probably expect it to have mountain weather. Parts of the state do have that weather, yes, but one detail which is easy to miss is that WV has both 4,800-foot-tall mountains and also valleys near sea level. For example, my house is at around 630 feet elevation, and then there’s the state capital of Charleston, which is about 600 feet above sea level.

What this means is that some parts of the state have the alpine weather you would expect, but other parts such as the Charleston area have weather more like that of northern Virginia.

No, seriously, I’m at my house in Clendenin this weekend. There is no snow on the ground, and the rain water which coincidentally collected in a bucket is still liquid. Also, the ground isn’t even frozen yet. The current weather at my house in WV is honestly very similar to what’s going on at my mother’s house in northern VA.

I experienced very different weather today on my drive here. There was no snow in Virginia, and no snow in Clendenin, but there was snow on the ground up in the mountains. Davis, WV (elevation 3,520 feet), had 2″ to 3″ of snow on the ground when I drove through town (I almost got stuck).

I have driven through inclement weather to my house in WV 6 or 7 times now, and I’ve noticed that most of the troubling weather, be it snow, rain, or fog, was really only an issue in the 60 mile or so stretch when I am high up in the mountains. The rest of the time (with the exception of one rain storm) the weather in Clendenin really isn’t that bad (and I say that as someone who grew up in Kansas and also lived in Ohio, two places that in some years measured the snowfall in yards).

Basically, the only times I’ve really had a problem with the weather in WV was at an elevation of 2,500 feet or higher.

And it’s not that I would really hate having feet of snow each winter, it’s just that I like that I won’t really have to worry about getting to the store.