Cold/Wind Chill — Mccracken, Kentucky

2014-01-06 to 2014-01-07 · Mccracken, Kentucky

Wider weather episode

Dangerously cold wind chills were observed from late on the night of the 5th through early on the morning of the 7th. Wind chills during this entire period were colder than 10 below zero. The coldest wind chill readings were in the Henderson and Owensboro area during the daytime hours of the 6th...when the average wind chills were around 20 below zero. Average wind chills elsewhere in western Kentucky were from 10 to 20 below zero. The actual high temperature at Paducah was 10 degrees on the 6th. This was the 10th coldest high temperature on record for any day of the year. This was the most severe cold snap of the 2013-14 winter season. The extreme cold resulted in one fatality. An elderly man in the Paducah area died of hypothermia after spending a night outdoors in the cold. The 85-year-old man apparently locked himself out of his house accidentally. The man was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and no shoes or socks. The extreme cold resulted in many problems with burst pipes and overworked furnaces. Demand for utilities such as gas and electricity was near record highs. Water main breaks occurred as the cold weather put stress on pipes. Arctic high pressure over the Plains states produced a strong northwest wind flow of bitterly cold air across the Lower Ohio Valley and southeast Missouri.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 488868. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.