Winter Weather — York, Nebraska

2010-12-15 to 2010-12-16 · York, Nebraska

Event narrative

Light freezing drizzle across the area resulted in slick roads, which played a role in a fatal accident near the Waco interchange of Interstate 80. Two people were killed when their vehicle lost control and became pinned under a semi.

Wider weather episode

A narrow east to west oriented corridor of light wintry precipitation worked from north to south across most of South Central Nebraska on this Wednesday, mainly between the mid-afternoon and mid-evening hours. While many locations west of the Highway 281 corridor remained just warm enough to keep the precipitation type as liquid rain, slightly colder temperatures to the east resulted in primarily a mix of freezing drizzle, light freezing rain and a dusting of snow. Some of the most-concentrated icing focused along and near the Interstate 80 corridor within the first few hours after nightfall. As roads became covered in a thin layer of ice, several traffic accidents resulted. Along the Interstate in far eastern York County, a collision between a car and semi-trailer killed two people, marking the 5th and 6th weather-related traffic fatalities in York County in less than a month.

This light wintry precipitation event was largely driven by a modest zone of low-mid level frontogenesis, tied to the left exit region of a 120 knot upper level jet streak pushing into the region from the Central Rockies.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 267301. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.