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Storm Impacting the Northwest U.S.; Fire Weather Conditions in Southern California; Severe Weather in the South

A Pacific storm is bringing areas of low elevation rain, moderate to heavy mountain snow, and high winds to the Northwest. Strong Santa Ana winds and very dry conditions are producing elevated to critical fire weather conditions in southern California. Isolated strong to severe thunderstorms are possible through early Wednesday morning across parts of northeast Texas into western Tennessee. Read More >

Overview

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.  

Video of the new fallen snow on the evening of Christmas along Quicksand Creek in Breathitt County