Winter – Page 2 – Upland-South Science

Introduction:

If you ask county historians what were the worst winters to ever strike our area, they would pretty much all point to the winters of the late 1970s (76-77, 77-78, and 78-79). Where with the exception of December 1978 (which was around average) each winter month ranged from a few degrees below average to over 15 degrees below average as the month. All three winters featured above-average snowfall for our area (in Western KY the average snowfall ranges from about 7 inches a year in the southern Jackson Purchase to about 10-11 inches a season in Henderson and Union counties).

Overall Setup:

There is likely some debate on why these winters were so brutally cold for three years in a row, but it is likely caused by a variety of factors. One factor was a series of strong La-Nina’s in the early to mid-1970s likely stored up plenty of cold arctic air in the Arctic. Another factor was likely the high extent of arctic sea ice. Sea ice has a high albedo and reflects sunlight. That is a concern when people discuss long-range climate and sea ice loss as the ocean absorbs more sunlight due to its darker blue color versus the white color of snow. Each winter featured a strong high-pressure system in the Greenland area and a +PNA that allowed for ridging to form along the west coast leading to constant troughs across the Central and Eastern USA. The Weak El-Nino of 1976-77 and 1977-78 also led to a subtropical jet providing an avenue for storms to form producing more snow. More snow cover leads to more colder conditions. On a hot summer day let’s take a polar plunge into these winters.

January 1977:

November 1976 was one of the coldest November’s on record, especially the end of the month. Even though there wasn’t a significant winter storm there but it did set the stage for what to come. December and February overall were below-average but for this winter the events of January 1977 are what is noteworthy.

Simply put, January 1977 is the coldest January and the coldest month on record for our area, except for Paducah where January 1940 was just a hair colder.

Bowling Green -17.3F

Hopkinsville -16.7F

Paducah -16.2F

A major snowstorm in early January producing 4 to 11 inches of snow moved across our area with a brutal airmass. Following this storm were lows below -10F across our area. Following this event we had two weeks straight of sub +20F lows across the area. At all three stations in Western KY that were recording significant data featured an average high below freezing (the only time this ever happened in Paducah) and the coldest month on record. As a result, the Ohio River froze solid as well as other bodies of water. Due to the energy crisis and extreme cold across the country, there were some power outages and shortages of coal and heating supplies during this cold shot. On January 19th parts of Florida between Tampa and Orlando saw up to 2 inches of snow with a trace of snow reported in both Miami, FL and in Freeport, Bahamas (the first and only time this ever happened in their history).

*The Arctic high was over the Deep South instead of Canada or the Northern USA leading to the unusual cold well to the south.*

January 1978:

The month of January 1977 was the coldest on record, but the winter of 1977-78 was the coldest winter on record. Again the Ohio River froze over and at Paducah every night went below freezing from January 8th through March 6th. Still, this January temperature-wise was very brutal and is easily a Top-10 coldest January if not even within the Top-5 in some stations.

Bowling Green -13.7F

Hopkinsville -11.4F

Paducah -12.2F

The main story besides the steady cold of the month was the intense snowfall. There were two major winter storms this month that had blizzard to near blizzard conditions as heavy snow and 40-50MPH gusts combined. The first major winter storm that Beau Dodson talks about in his link was from January 16th through the 18th. This produced 4 to 16 inches of snow across our area. On January 25th-26th we were struck by the Blizzard of 1978. Where we had 40-50MPH gusts along with 3-7 inches of additional snow. Blowing drifts shut down many roads, there were scattered power outages, and many stations reported sub +20F lows for three weeks following.

*The snowfall amounts of the January 16th-18th, 1978 Winter Storm*

*The low-pressure system on January 26th for the Blizzard of 1978*

*The snow-covered road just south of Hopkinsville after the two major winter storms.*

February 1978:

The next month featured several advisory-level snowfalls that ranged from 1-4 inches. The issue was that this was the coldest February on record so this snowfall stuck around the entire month.

Bowling Green -13.9F

Hopkinsville -14.8F

Paducah -15.7F

This was several degrees colder than February 2015, which for many of us post-1980 is the coldest February that we have experienced just to give you an idea of how brutally cold this month truly was. The first part of March was also quite cold and we didn’t really start to come out of the deep freeze until the middle of March.

Winter of 1978-79:

December of this winter started out with some heavy rain. Widespread property and severe road flooding occurred across Bowling Green and Hopkinsville into Frankfort. Temperatures were around average. Some people may have hoped that this was a sign that we wouldn’t repeat the cold insanity of the previous two winters, but that was not going to be the case as the Arctic invasion came back in January.

*Temperature departures for both January and February of 1979. Both are top-10 coldest January and February on record.*

The snow also returned as well in January with a fairly significant snowstorm in early January with February being especially snowy across the area with Bowling Green recording 20 inches of snow along with 11 inches of snow from the 6th through the 8th and a 5-inch snowfall later in the month.

*From the NWS of Paducah with up to 8 inches of snow near Uniontown and 3 through 6 inches of snow elsewhere. Sub-zero lows followed this.*

1979’s big story was the amount of precipitation. Bowling Green recorded the wettest year on record with over 70 inches of rain and Paducah recorded about 65 inches of rain. This is about 20 to 25 inches of rain above normal. This caused millions of dollars of damage to agriculture as mold due to the steady heavy rains ruined a significant chunk of the Tobacco crop and the cool and wet conditions of the winter and spring delayed the planting of crops overall.

Why Were These Winters So Impressive:

The combination of extreme and endless cold along with rounds of significant snowfall made these winters so rough. The main reason why these winters are still discussed even 40+ years later is because of the meteorological rarity of having three winters like this in a row. We have never in our history had 3 winters in a row that had months that finished -10F or more below the historical average. This is also the last time that major rivers froze solid, which was impressive as we manually impacted the flow of the Ohio River with locks and dams by this time. Some school districts missed so many days due to the snow and bitter cold during these winters that some schools had to hold class on Saturday just to have enough educational days between March and early June.

We had several indirect fatalities (number unknown) due to traffic accidents and likely some unreported deaths due to improper heating of homes. This occurring during the late 70s energy crisis also caused people to lose electricity at times. With our modern power needs it is hard to imagine us not having to deal with at least rolling blackouts if the events of January 1977, January and February 1978, and January and February 1979 were to play out due to increasing power demand.

As negative as the effects were several people made lifelong memories with their family and friends when playing in the snow and engaging in wintertime activities (probably a few broken bones along the way though).

While even with the warming times we can still get a brutally cold and snowy month (see Feb/Early March 2015 and Feb 2021), it is very unlikely that we will see a repeat of these 3 winters. Even stations with records going back to the 1800s haven’t seen 3 winters a brutal back to back to back.