Cold/Wind Chill — Lauderdale, Mississippi

2010-01-01 to 2010-01-14 · Lauderdale, Mississippi

Event narrative

An fatality occurred in the county do due hypothermia. A 68 year old male was found in an unheated house in the Zero community. An elderly woman was also a fatality that occurred in an unheated home in the county.

Wider weather episode

A prolonged cold snap, caused by a couple of strong arctic air masses, affected the ArkLaMiss region during the first two weeks of January. This resulted in some record temperatures across the region. Daily highs during that period were in the 20s, 30s and 40s with lows in the teens and 20s. The first ten days of 2010 were the coldest first ten days of any year on record with an average temperature of around 29 degrees, which is around 14 to 16 degrees below normal. This outbreak will not be remembered for any bitterly cold temperatures, it will be remembered for the prolonged period of cold conditions and spans of time below freezing. Due to the duration of the cold, a great deal of damage occurred to the water line infrastructure around the region. The issues from the hard freeze were as follows: water line breaks, and frozen water pipes to homes, especially rural homes; wells freezing up; and water valves being stuck. Due to all the water line breaks, flooding of buildings and homes occurred. By far, the hardest hit area due to broken water lines and overall impact, was the Jackson Metro. The city had to be shut down for 3 to 5 days due to no water pressure. Substantial economic losses occurred due to the downtime of municipalities across the Metro. Other large cities across the forecast area were also substantially impacted by busted water lines and little to no water pressure. This event also caused 3 fatalities due to hypothermia. One occurred in Hinds County and two in Lauderdale County. The overall monetary losses from this prolonged cold event is a best guess. The economic losses due to downtime for municipalities were not know and not included.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 213701. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.