Winter Weather — Trigg, Kentucky

2025-01-05 · Trigg, Kentucky

Wider weather episode

A winter storm, with locally major impacts, affected western Kentucky on the 5th with a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. A brief wintry mix that fell primarily as freezing rain quickly transitioned to plain rain later that morning and afternoon across much of the region. Peak accumulations ranged from a trace to a half inch of snow and sleet along with a glaze of ice. Further north along and north of Interstate 69, more snow and sleet had occurred on the onset before transitioning to a prolonged period of freezing rain and eventually plain rain. Wrap around moisture caused one final burst of snow into the morning hours on the 6th after a lull that evening with patchy freezing drizzle. This is where the thickest glaze of ice between a quarter to three quarters of an inch and a half to 2 inches of snow and sleet had accumulated that led to widespread treacherous travel conditions, traffic accidents and major power outages. Two large trees and a power pole were downed near Princeton in Caldwell County, KY. A large tree fell on a home on the south side of Morganfield in Union County, KY. Trees were seen leaned over and broken across Sharpe in Marshall County, KY and Greenville in Muhlenberg County, KY. Further west, numerous large tree limbs were down near Oscar in Ballard County while power lines fell down on trees on Clinton Road near Lone Oak in McCracken County, KY. Multiple trees were mangled near Marion in Crittenden County, KY that experienced some of the greatest impacts. Over 100,000 residents across the entire tri-state region were without power during its peak that night into the following morning, with over 7000 outages in Henderson County, 3600 outages in Union County and 1900 outages in Lyon County, KY. Temperatures near freezing warmed across most of the region later that morning into the afternoon, but a shallow cold layer near 1000 ft above ground level made the ice reluctant to melt off the tree branches. The heavy weight on trees led to additional power outages during the day on the 6th due to wind gusts over 20 mph. Wet surfaces the prior night also resulted in a flash freeze as temperatures quickly plummeted back below freezing into the 20s. Key Impacts: transportation delays, traffic accidents, power outages.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1225097. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.