Area residents woke up to several inches of snow on the ground on Monday. But as rain fell throughout the day, mixing with the snow already on the ground, meteorologists expressed concern over rapidly rising creeks and rivers overnight and into Tuesday.
The rain - which came down at a steady pace most of Monday - was expected to increase overnight into Tuesday morning, said Dylan Cooper, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston.
"Normally, with just the rain and nothing else, we'd be able to handle something like this," Cooper said Monday afternoon. "But with the snow that we got [Sunday] night, that snow holds water in it and we've got the rain falling on top and melting the snow, and it's all rushing down into the creeks and rivers and creating the potential for rapid rises of those waterways."
At about 3:30 p.m. Monday, Cooper expected the southern part of the state would get a break from rain for several hours. There had been no reports of flooding Monday afternoon, he said.
By Monday night, Cooper said, heavier rainfall was expected to move in to the area from Tennessee. Counties on both sides of the Ohio River would be most at risk for flooding, he said.
A flood watch issued Monday morning was to stay in effect until late Tuesday morning for Wayne, Cabell, Lincoln, Putnam, Mason, Kanawha, Jackson, Roane, Wood, Wirt, Calhoun, Gilmer, Ritchie, Doddridge, Lewis, Pleasants, Tyler and Harrison counties.
Temperatures were expected to stay above freezing Monday night, so icy conditions weren't expected to be much of a problem Tuesday morning. Cooper said there could be some slick spots on roads that aren't regularly treated.
Between 6 and 8 a.m. Tuesday, rain could turn to snow or a wintry mix, Cooper predicted.
Later this week, temperatures might dip back down into the 20s overnight, according to Cooper.
"The big question as far as when we'll see rain versus snow will all depend on those temperatures," he said, about the rest of the week.