Heavy Snow — Lee, Kentucky

2020-12-24 to 2020-12-25 · Lee, Kentucky

Event narrative

A report was made of around 5 inches on a ridge top 1 west of the community of Monica at 5:50 pm EST on 12/24. Meanwhile, to the west of this location, much lesser amounts under 3 inches were reported through the morning of 12/25.

Wider weather episode

A strong cold front passed through east Kentucky on Christmas Eve. Widespread rain accompanied the cold front through early afternoon. However, as the cold air spread into east Kentucky, it interacted with increasing moisture from a weather disturbance aloft, to provide a changeover to snow that occurred between 2 pm and 8 pm. A short period of sleet was also observed during the changeover time. Snow became very heavy at times with snowfall rates between 1 and 2 inches per hour observed. The snow continued into the evening hours, before the widespread snow pulled out of the area. However, snow showers persisted from Christmas Eve Night through Christmas day, before finally winding down. As temperatures plummeted into the teens and 20s during the evening on Christmas Eve, icy conditions quickly developed areawide. These icy conditions continued through Christmas.

The most notable impact was related to travel across east Kentucky. The heavy snow created treacherous road conditions across east Kentucky. The Hal Rogers Parkway was shut down between London and Manchester for a short time. There were also numerous reports of cars off the road and significant backups due to poor weather conditions. In addition, there were many reports of trees knocked down due to the heavy snow along with thousands of power outages.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 926345. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.