Extreme Cold/Wind Chill — Wayne, Kentucky

2015-02-19 to 2015-02-20 · Wayne, Kentucky

Event narrative

Wayne County Coroner said 70-year-old Tensley Couch died Thursday afternoon in the snow outside of his home in the Jabez community. His cause of death is believed to be cold weather and exertion. The coroner said Couch came home from the store and when his truck became stuck about 150 feet from his home, he tried to walk the rest of the way. Couch collapsed and died about 50 feet from his front door.

Wider weather episode

A prolonged cold snap, beginning on the 15th, worsened as Arctic high pressure combined with a deep snow pack to produce some of the coldest temperatures since January 1994 during the morning of February 20th. Several locations fell to 20 below zero and colder, temperatures not observed during the month of February in eastern Kentucky since 1899. The prolonged cold temperatures resulted in several counties experiencing widespread water outages due to frozen water lines and frozen intakes caused by ice covered rivers.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 563146. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.