Heavy Snow — Elliott, Kentucky

2022-01-16 to 2022-01-17 · Elliott, Kentucky

Event narrative

Snow fell heavily at times during the afternoon and evening hours of the 16th. By the morning of the 17th, the department of highways estimated 6 to 7 inches of accumulation along the Highway 504 corridor in northwest Elliot County. Lesser amounts of around 4 inches were estimated in the eastern part of the county along Highway 32 near the Elliot/Lawrence county line. A CoCoRaHS observer reported 4.1 inches of snow 9 miles south southeast of Olive Hill at 9:00 AM on the 17th.

Wider weather episode

A complex winter storm lifted across the Southeast US on January 16th, initially spreading a mix of light snow, sleet, and freezing rain across the eastern Kentucky during the morning hours. A nose of warm air changed the precipitation over to mainly rain and freezing rain by late morning and early afternoon. Eventually colder air filtered in aloft and eroded the warm nose enough to allow the precipitation to switch back over to snow. As this occurred, most of the precipitation became confined to a narrow but intense band of snow along the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau. The heavy snow led to thousands of power outages from McCreary and Whitley Counties, northward into Menifee County. As the evening wore on, the snow slowly shifted east and split up into multiple weaker bands. Most of the eastern Kentucky saw a warning-criteria snowfall with the exception of portions of Knott and Perry counties.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1000550. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.