Live from the National Weather Service

West Virginia Storm Alerts

Active National Weather Service hail, wind, thunderstorm, tornado, tropical and winter storm alerts covering West Virginia, with the counties each one names and the office that issued it — plus what the state’s severe-weather season looks like and how each of these events actually damages a roof.

Below that, in its own lane, the smoke and fire family: fire weather, dense smoke, air quality, blowing dust and volcanic ashfall.

4 active alerts · read from the National Weather Service at Oct 10, 7:44 AM EDT · refreshed every 10 minutes

This page is informational and is not a safety resource. It exists to show roofing professionals where storm damage has been reported, and it is refreshed on a ten-minute cycle, so it can lag the Weather Service.

During an active weather event, the authority is weather.gov and your local emergency management agency. Follow them, not this page.

Active storm alerts in West Virginia

Reproduced exactly as the National Weather Service issued them. Alerts frequently cross state lines, so a county list may name counties in a neighbouring state. Smoke and fire alerts are reported separately, in their own lane below.

Wind Advisory

ModerateUrgencyExpectedCertaintyLikely

Issued by NWS Charleston WV

In effect from Oct 10, 5:00 PM local · until Oct 11, 11:00 AM local

Counties named in this alert

Dickenson
Buchanan
McDowell
Wyoming
Northwest Raleigh
Southeast Raleigh
Northwest Fayette
Southeast Fayette
Northwest Nicholas
Southeast Nicholas
Northwest Webster
Southeast Webster
Northwest Pocahontas
Northwest Randolph
Southeast Randolph

Read the full National Weather Service text

NWS headline

Wind Advisory issued October 10 at 5:14AM EDT until October 11 at 11:00AM EDT by NWS Charleston WV

NWS description

* WHAT...Southeast winds 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph expected, with isolated gusts up to 60 mph possible along the highest ridgelines and favored terrain for downslope winds. * WHERE...Portions of southwest Virginia and northeast, southeast, and southern West Virginia. * WHEN...From 5 PM this afternoon to 11 AM EDT Sunday. * IMPACTS...Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result.

NWS instructions

Additional information can be found at https://www.weather.gov/rlx as well as on our X and Facebook pages.

View this alert on weather.gov

Wind Advisory

ModerateUrgencyExpectedCertaintyLikely

Issued by NWS Blacksburg VA

In effect from Oct 10, 5:00 PM local · until Oct 11, 11:00 AM local

Counties named in this alert

Ashe
Watauga
Tazewell
Smyth
Grayson
Mercer
Summers
Western Greenbrier

Read the full National Weather Service text

NWS headline

Wind Advisory issued October 10 at 1:24AM EDT until October 11 at 11:00AM EDT by NWS Blacksburg VA

NWS description

* WHAT...East winds 15 to 25 mph with gusts up to 55 mph expected. * WHERE...In North Carolina, Ashe and Watauga Counties. In Virginia, Grayson, Smyth, and Tazewell Counties. In West Virginia, Mercer, Summers, and Western Greenbrier Counties. * WHEN...From 5 PM this afternoon to 11 AM EDT Sunday. * IMPACTS...Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Strong easterly to southeasterly winds from the remnants of Isaias will move over the region today into Sunday, which may lead to downed trees and power poles and subsequently power outages across higher terrain locations from NW North Carolina to SE West Virginia.

NWS instructions

Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high profile vehicles. Use extra caution. Secure outdoor objects.

View this alert on weather.gov

Wind Advisory

ModerateUrgencyExpectedCertaintyLikely

Issued by NWS Baltimore MD/Washington DC

In effect from Oct 10, 8:00 PM local · until Oct 11, 11:00 AM local

Counties named in this alert

Western Garrett
Western Grant
Western Pendleton

Read the full National Weather Service text

NWS headline

Wind Advisory issued October 10 at 1:46AM EDT until October 11 at 11:00AM EDT by NWS Baltimore MD/Washington DC

NWS description

* WHAT...East winds 20 to 25 mph with gusts up to 50 mph expected. * WHERE...In Maryland, Western Garrett County. In West Virginia, Western Grant and Western Pendleton Counties. * WHEN...From 8 PM this evening to 11 AM EDT Sunday. * IMPACTS...Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result.

NWS instructions

Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high profile vehicles. Use extra caution.

View this alert on weather.gov

Wind Advisory

ModerateUrgencyExpectedCertaintyLikely

Issued by NWS Pittsburgh PA

In effect from Oct 10, 8:00 PM local · until Oct 11, 11:00 AM local

Counties named in this alert

Ridges of Eastern Monongalia and Northwestern Preston
Preston
Eastern Preston
Western Tucker
Eastern Tucker

Read the full National Weather Service text

NWS headline

Wind Advisory issued October 10 at 12:25AM EDT until October 11 at 11:00AM EDT by NWS Pittsburgh PA

NWS description

* WHAT...Southeast winds 20 to 35 mph with gusts between 40 to 50 mph expected. * WHERE...Eastern Preston, Eastern Tucker, Preston, Ridges of Eastern Monongalia and Northwestern Preston, and Western Tucker Counties. * WHEN...From 8 PM this evening to 11 AM EDT Sunday. * IMPACTS...Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result.

NWS instructions

Secure outdoor objects. Please report downed trees, power lines or large branches by calling 412-262-1988, posting to the NWS Pittsburgh Facebook page, or using X @NWSPittsburgh.

View this alert on weather.gov

Radar over West Virginia

Straight from radar.weather.gov and regenerated by NOAA roughly every two minutes.

National Weather Service radar for the Northeast, covering New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. — Where precipitation is falling over West Virginia right now. The National Weather Service publishes these mosaics by region rather than by state, so the frame runs past the state line and neighbouring states are visible in it. Radar shows precipitation, not damage — a return over a county is not evidence that any particular building was hit.
Radar imagery: the National Weather Service. Served directly from radar.weather.gov, a free US Government service, and regenerated by NOAA roughly every two minutes — your browser picks up new frames on its own. This site does not process, re-colour or re-time the imagery; it is the Weather Service’s own mosaic, unmodified. weather.gov
This radar is informational and is not a safety resource. During an active weather event, the authority is weather.gov and your local emergency management agency. Follow them, not this page.

Smoke & fire lane

Smoke & fire alerts in West Virginia

The National Weather Service issues a separate family of alerts for fire weather, dense smoke, air quality, blowing dust and volcanic ashfall. This lane reports that family for West Virginia, kept apart from the storm alerts above because the two answer different questions.

Wildfire smoke is what drives smoke-damage losses, and it reaches a building through the same vents that keep an attic dry — which is why it belongs on a roofing page at all. Alerts describing particulate already in the air are listed ahead of fire-weather forecasts; that ordering is this lane’s own and is not a Weather Service ranking.

0 active smoke or fire alerts · read from the National Weather Service at Oct 10, 7:44 AM EDT · refreshed every 10 minutes

No active smoke or fire alerts

The National Weather Service has no active fire weather, dense smoke, air quality, blowing dust or volcanic ashfall alerts covering West Virginia as of this refresh.

An empty list here is the ordinary reading, not a fault and not a gap in the data. Most of the country carries nothing in this family on most days, and this lane fills itself the moment the Weather Service issues something.

The 12 alert types this lane reports

Every one is a National Weather Service product and is listed under the name the Weather Service gives it. Grouping them into families is ours; the names are not.

Fire weather: Fire WarningExtreme Fire DangerRed Flag WarningFire Weather Watch
Dense smoke: Dense Smoke Advisory
Air quality: Air Quality Alert
Blowing dust: Blowing Dust WarningDust Storm WarningBlowing Dust AdvisoryDust Advisory
Volcanic ashfall: Ashfall WarningAshfall Advisory

The Weather Service defines each of these products and this site does not attempt to. What any one of them means, and the criteria an office issues it under, are at weather.gov.

This lane is informational and is not a safety resource. It reports which National Weather Service smoke and fire alerts are active and where, on a ten-minute refresh cycle, so it can lag the Weather Service.

During an active weather event, the authority is weather.gov and your local emergency management agency. Follow them, not this page.

Smoke exposure and air quality are health matters, and this page does not address them. It does not tell you whether it is safe to be outdoors or to work, what an air quality index number means for you or for anyone in your household, or what respiratory protection to use. Those questions belong with a clinician and with the agency that issued the alert. The federal air-quality authority is airnow.gov.

What smoke does to a roof assembly

An active alert is a record of conditions, not a finding about any building. These are the standing references on the building-assembly side of a smoke or fire loss.

Smoke odor in roof decking and attic insulationWhy odor outlives the visible repairs — deposition into bare decking and framing, insulation acting as a reservoir, and the difference between cleaning, sealing and removing. The article that covers wildfire smoke reaching an attic through the vents, with the roof itself untouched.Fire damage to a roof assemblyDirect flame against radiant heat, shingle distortion and mat delamination, charred sheathing and loss of section, and why a roof that looks intact from the ground can still be condemned.Roof replacement after a fireHow the repair-or-replace decision is built on a fire loss: partial against full deck replacement, the boundary between charred and heat-affected wood, matching, and the code upgrades a repair can trigger.Ventilation holes and fire department roof damageFire crews cut the roof on purpose. What vertical ventilation is for, how tactical damage is separated from fire damage in a scope, and what an opened deck needs in the meantime.Smoke Mitigation Network — directory listingLaboratory smoke damage testing and documentation, listed under Restoration & Mitigation → Smoke Damage Testing & Assessment. Whether a building is contaminated is established by sampling rather than by looking at it. The listing discloses that it shares ownership with this directory.

Severe weather season in West Virginia

Peak season

May–August for thunderstorms, December–March for winter

West Virginia’s terrain shapes both of its seasons. Summer thunderstorms bring damaging straight-line wind, funnelled and locally enhanced by the valleys. Winter brings heavy snow loading in the higher elevations and a persistent freezing-rain corridor at lower ones, where the roofing damage arrives as accreted ice and falling limbs. Remnants of Atlantic tropical systems occasionally stall against the mountains.

Seasons describe a pattern, not a schedule. The National Weather Service issues these products year-round, and the live list above is the only authority on what is actually running in West Virginia right now.

What NOAA has recorded in West Virginia

The archived record, not the live feed. Severe weather logged by the National Centers for Environmental Information over the covered years, split into the events NOAA keys to a county and the events it keys to a forecast zone.

Between 2016 and 2026, NOAA recorded 4,377 county-level severe-weather events across West Virginia: 3,589 thunderstorm wind events, 743 hail reports, 44 tornadoes and 1 heavy snow event. Of the 743 hail reports carrying a measured size, 560 were 1.00 in across or larger.

A further 2,232 events over the same period were recorded against National Weather Service forecast zones rather than counties — 652 winter storms, 638 strong wind events, 572 heavy snow events, 298 high wind events and 55 ice storms. A forecast zone is not a county: it can span several or subdivide one, so these are reported here at state level and appear in no county total on this site.

County-keyed events

4,377

2016–2026

Zone-keyed events

2,232

statewide, not county-attributable

Hail 1.00 in or larger

560

of 743 sized hail reports

Tornadoes

in the county record

Counties with the heaviest record

Ranked by the number of county-keyed events NOAA recorded, 2016–2026. 55 of West Virginia’s counties carry a record in this dataset.

Kanawha County325largest hail 4.25 in (Softball+) · peak gust 87 kt (about 100 mph)
Putnam County194largest hail 3.25 in (Softball+) · peak gust 70 kt (about 81 mph)
Monongalia County176largest hail 2.00 in (Baseball) · peak gust 60 kt (about 69 mph)
Preston County153largest hail 2.50 in (Baseball) · peak gust 65 kt (about 75 mph)
Wood County150largest hail 2.00 in (Baseball) · peak gust 60 kt (about 69 mph)
Berkeley County133largest hail 1.50 in (Ping Pong Ball) · peak gust 61 kt (about 70 mph)
Harrison County128largest hail 1.25 in (Quarter - Half Dollar) · peak gust 87 kt (about 100 mph)
Jefferson County124largest hail 2.50 in (Baseball) · peak gust 65 kt (about 75 mph)

Preliminary — not yet in the permanent archive

931 further preliminary storm reports have been filed against West Virginia counties since June 1, 2026. They are counted separately from every archived figure above and are not added to any of them.

Preliminary reports covering 2026-05-31 onward come from National Weather Service storm reports filed as events occur. They have not yet been through the quality-control review that produces the permanent archive, and individual reports may later be revised, combined or withdrawn.

County figures and state figures. County figures count events NOAA recorded against a county (hail, thunderstorm wind and tornadoes). High wind, winter storms, ice storms, blizzards, heavy snow, hurricanes and tropical storms are recorded against National Weather Service forecast zones rather than counties, so they are reported at state level instead. Counts reflect events that were observed and reported. NOAA does occasionally record one of those against a county instead. Where it has, the event sits in the county-keyed total above rather than the zone-keyed one — in West Virginia that applies to heavy snow events.

Source. Archived figures come from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information Storm Events Database, covering 2016 through May 31, 2026. Reports after that date come from NOAA Storm Prediction Center preliminary storm reports. Both are US Government works in the public domain. This is a record of past weather; the live alert list at the top of this page is the only authority on what is running in West Virginia now.

What these storms do to a roof

The damage mechanisms that matter in West Virginia, in the order they generate work here.

Hail

Hail damages an asphalt shingle in two ways at once. The impact knocks granules off the surface, and it can bruise or fracture the asphalt mat underneath without breaking the surface open. Granules are what shield the asphalt from ultraviolet light, so a roof that has lost them ages faster from that point on. A fractured mat is the reason hail damage is often described as latent: the roof may not leak the week of the storm, and the failure shows up later. On metal panels and metal accessories, hail leaves dents, which raises the separate question of whether the damage is cosmetic or has actually compromised the panel or its coating.

Straight-line wind

Wind damage on a shingle roof usually starts as a broken seal rather than a missing shingle. Uplift pressure is highest at the edges — rakes, eaves, ridges and hips — and along any line where the roof plane changes, so that is where tabs lift and the factory sealant strip lets go first. Once the seal is broken, a shingle that still looks fine from the ground is no longer bonded to the course below it and every later wind event works on the same spot. Wind also drives debris, and impact damage from a branch or from another roof’s material is a separate mechanism from uplift.

Ice storms

An ice storm coats a roof, and everything above it, in accreted ice. The weight on the roof itself is one part of it; the larger roofing consequence is usually what the same ice does to trees and limbs overhead, which then come down onto the covering. Ice accretion also works into any existing gap — a lifted shingle, an open seam, a tired flashing — and freeze-thaw cycling widens what it gets into.

Snow load and winter storms

Winter loads a roof rather than striking it. Accumulated snow is a sustained weight on the structure, and drifting means the load is rarely spread evenly — it piles against ridges, dormers, valleys and the low side of any change in roof height. Melt-and-refreeze adds the second mechanism: heat escaping through the roof melts snow that then refreezes at the cold eave, and the resulting ice can back water up under the covering, which sheds water flowing downhill but not water standing still.

Why the storm date matters

Property insurance works from a date of loss — a specific storm on a specific day over a specific area, not a general observation that a roof looks worn. That is why the county list and the effective and expiry times on each alert above are the useful part of this page: they are the National Weather Service’s own record that a given event covered a given county at a given time.

It also matters because hail damage is frequently latent. A fractured shingle mat can take a long time to become a leak, so the gap between the storm and the discovery can be considerable — and by then, establishing which storm did it is a records question rather than an observation. An alert naming a county is not evidence that any particular building was damaged; it is evidence of what the weather was doing over that county, which is where an assessment starts rather than where it ends.

Next steps in West Virginia

Roofing contractors in West VirginiaBrowse the West Virginia directory by city and county.West Virginia licensing rulesWhether roofers must be licensed here, which board issues it, and the bond and insurance rules.Storm damage roof repair guideHow hail and wind damage is identified, documented and repaired.National storm centerActive alerts across all 50 states and DC, busiest first.

Source: the National Weather Service. Every alert on this page comes from the NWS public alerts feed at api.weather.gov, a free US Government service, and is reproduced as the issuing office wrote it. The office that issued each alert is named on the alert itself.

This site does not edit, summarise or re-grade Weather Service text. Alerts are filtered into two separate lists — the event types that affect roofs, and the smoke, fire and airborne-particulate family — and each list is sorted. Nothing else is changed, and no alert is moved between the two lists to suit a heading.

weather.gov