Traffic Camera showing Back up around 8 a.m. Monday on Northbound I-81 (WV511)
INWOOD,W.Va. — An early morning snow squall in south Berkeley County led to the closure of a portion of the interstate in both directions during the Monday morning commute.
The weather system came through sometime before 3 a.m. and by 4 Monday morning, motorists were reporting roads in South Berkeley, including the interstate were “a sheet of ice” until south of the West Virginia/Virginia border.
Interstate 81 southbound was completely shut down near the 3 mile marker around 4 a.m.
Early morning social media post about snow squall and traffic delays
By 5:20 a.m., Alert Berkeley reported both directions of the interstate between the Virginia state line and the Inwood exit were experiencing “major traffic delays.”
By 8:00 a.m., the southbound issues had been cleared up, but traffic was a slow-go on the northbound side.
Temperatures were only in the upper 20s throughout most of the morning, making it difficult for any of the snow that fell to melt off.
Monday’s early morning snow squall followed a chaotic weather day Sunday across the region during which afternoon temperatures rose to the 50s then steadily dropped as a weather system came through, bringing with it wind gusts as high as 62 miles an hour in Martinsburg and downing trees across the panhandle. Tens of thousands of power customers in the Shenandoah Valley lost their power for at least part of the storm.
Morgan County Emergency Services relayed “numerous reports of trees down and power outages across the county” and cautioned folks to avoid any down lines.
Power was out Sunday for thousands of customers in the tri-state as powerful winds came through.
Wind gusts reported during Sunday’s storm
