CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- As the region braces for the latest onslaught of nasty weather, Charleston's Street Department is geared up to head out early this<co Friday> morning.

"As always, our trucks are here, loaded," Public Works Director Gary Taylor said Thursday. "We'll be on 12-hour shifts, starting in the morning at 4 a.m. Our men will work 12-hour shifts throughout the event until it's over."

Charleston and the Kanawha Valley could be spared the worst of the storm, but skiers at Snowshoe could see up to 2 feet of fresh snow this weekend, according to the National Weather Service.

"We're looking at lesser snow amounts the farther south in the state you go," said Simone Lewis, a forecaster with the NWS in Charleston. "The Charleston area could get 3 to 6 inches before the storm is over.

"Precipitation will move in around 10 a.m. from south to north, starting as a mix of mainly sleet and snow, with some rain mixed in. Areas such as Beckley could see some ice, too, up to a half inch, so they could have some problems."

The weather service issued a winter storm warning Thursday afternoon for most of northern and eastern West Virginia. A band of counties from south of Parkersburg and Clarksburg to the Kanawha Valley is in a winter storm advisory, while four southern coalfield counties are listed in a hazardous weather outlook.

In Charleston and elsewhere in the advisory area, the wintry mix could change to rain by afternoon, Lewis said.

"Northern mountains -- Randolph and Pocahontas counties -- will see an all-snow event."

Snow should be falling all across the state by tonight, she said, with most snow accumulations on Saturday. The storm will move out Saturday night or early Sunday.

"Central West Virginia to Kanawha County could get 3 to 6 inches," Lewis said. "Parkersburg to Clarksburg, 8 to 10 inches. Randolph and Pocahontas could get 12 to 18 inches with 20 inches at the high peaks. But I would not be surprised to see 2 feet in some locations."

Despite the multiple storms this winter, Charleston has plenty of salt on hand, Taylor said. "We're in pretty good shape -- about 4,000 tons."

The city recently got a new supply of salt, he said, but still has the capacity to buy another 2,400 tons under its salt budget.

The Street Department has used up about 60 percent of the $73,000 it has budgeted for snow removal overtime, Taylor said, and will likely dip into that again this weekend.

"Definitely, and then we have another snow event that's supposed to arrive on Tuesday."

It takes three dozen or more people at a time to run the city's snow removal operation, Taylor said. "We have 17 trucks, 34 people working on the trucks, two per truck, and we have to have someone to load the salt. So, 35 people per shift.

"And that doesn't even include support people, like maintenance people in the garage." Scraper/spreader trucks tend to break down at the worst possible time -- in the middle of a storm, he said.

"And we have someone in our radio room, answering phones 24 hours a day. I think that's the worst job we've got. It's always somebody complaining. Everybody wants their street cleared first.

"We have 15 routes in the city. They start at one end and go to the other end. If you're at the end of the route, you wonder why other streets are clear but not yours."

But don't expect anyone to change the routes. "Our drivers are familiar with the routes. They've been driving them for years. They know where the turns are, where they can back up.

And don't expect the city to clear streets downtown. "We do not do snow removal on flat land. It exhausts too much of our manpower. We just advise people there to drive with caution."

Meanwhile, Dunbar town officials recently spent $4,800 for an extra 100 tons of salt to get through the rest of the winter. Officials in St. Albans say they have plenty of salt for the town's four salt trucks.

Clendenin officials say they are also ready for the storm.

"We've replenished our salt pile," said Clendenin Mayor Bob Ore.

Ore said Clendenin has only one salt truck, but the two men who run it both live in town and are available at a moment's notice.

"If they know when the snow's coming, they'll put salt down first," he said. "Before this storm hits, I imagine we'll be putting salt down."

C.W. Sigman, Kanawha County's fire coordinator and deputy emergency manager, said ground temperatures above freezing should spare Kanawha County major winter weather problems.

"It's not going to be as bad here as the rest of the state," he said.

Staff writer Rusty Marks contributed to this report.

Reach Jim Balow at ba...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5102.