Why Monday's Winter Storm Was Awesome

As we all know and have experienced over the past 24 hours, Bowling Green was slammed with a major snowstorm of the likes that few have seen in many years. Snow fell at rapid rates, and storm totals were officially at 9.4″ at the airport, but many around town reported upwards of 12″ of snowfall.

WxOrNot Forecaster Jacob Wilkins nailed the forecast.

This was the biggest snowstorm I have seen in my 19 years of life, but there are so many reasons that this one will go down as one of the states most significant winter storms ever.

It was totally random.

Last week, there was a two day timespan in which the ECMWF (most reliable weather model) painted 8-15″ of snowfall across the state between Sunday and Tuesday. Then, all of the models lost it. The system fell of the map so fast that it left us all very sad and doubtful of its occurrence, and left me happy about my 3 H’s theory holding up.

But this system broke the 3 H’s. It broke it. Shattered it into a million pieces in every way possible. The hope/hype was almost non-existent. This system showed up on the models suddenly on Saturday morning again, and the NWS issued a winter storm watch for 4″+ along the KY/TN border. When this occurred, the weather world lost its mind.

The weather world on Saturday. h/t giphy.com

And then, there was no heartbreak. None. If you were heartbroken by this snow event, I don’t know what to tell you. The last time that BG had >8″ of snow officially was in 1968. Again, 1968. It is so rare that the majority of the state of KY sees almost 100% snowfall over a large area like this, but it happened. From I-64 and south to the border, almost everyone saw 9″ or more. This led to significant travel issues across the region and has led to so many school closings.

Nice! RT @lamboe80: High above Sugarmill subdiv in Plano. Full vid here: http://t.co/EBr3qmeI9k @WxOrNotBG @wbkotv pic.twitter.com/VhzowArOM3

— Landon Hampton  (@WxOrNotBG) February 18, 2015

Sunset view over the frozen tundra in Warren County. #Kentucky pic.twitter.com/lLYjmRA7ll — Landon Hampton  (@WxOrNotBG) February 17, 2015

A view above #BGKY! More snow on the way?! Be safe out there! #KYWX #Yellowberri @WxOrNotBG @bgdailynews @joeimel pic.twitter.com/JeKG60iS4I

— Yellowberri (@yellowberri) February 17, 2015

It impacted the whole state.

This one makes this system that much cooler and that much rarer. On an east to west line, the entire state was significantly impacted by this snowfall. I can’t tell you the last time that happened. This system came at a time where you had:

Lots of cold
Little preparedness
Lots of moisture
A public that didn’t necessarily buy it

Look, you can tell me you bought it all you want. But when it comes down to it, we had many people trying to drive in this thing yesterday. Trying to do normal stuff. Roads were and still are disaster. And the forecast for tonight? 1-3″ across the areas hit hardest. This is just insane. Look at this snow map:

Again, that is just telling at how insane this whole thing has been.

It was meteorologically insane.

For meteorologists, this system is as good as it gets, and we knew on Saturday that this had a really good shot to be the system. Talking with my cowriters and Landon over the weekend was really interesting, as we went from “This could be a bit of an over-achiever” on Friday morning, to “This is gonna dump a lot of snow on us” Sunday afternoon. After the NAM went off on Saturday night, we all freaked out.

The system came at a time in which plenty of arctic air was deeply entrenched across the region, and this kept the precip type predominately snowfall. Actually, we only had about 15 minutes of sleet at the beginning of the system when the atmosphere was getting saturated. It is so rare to have a winter storm hit KY and not have precip type issues associated with it.

The cold air also created an environment favorable for efficient snowfall. Because it was so cold, snowfall ratios were higher than the typical 10:1 ratio (10″ of snow would be 1″ of water in that case). This allowed snowfall to fall at higher rates than we have seen in quite sometime.

2″ per hour snowfall rates are very rare and quite ridiculous around here and we had areas approach that on Monday.

This system was so cool, and will likely be remembered as one of the best winter storms in decades around the state. Many areas saw greater than 10″ of snowfall, and this is just such a rare feat to accomplish. I’m proud of the atmosphere, for once.

Update: Its even better because WKU DOESN’T HAVE CLASS AGAIN. Skipper is da man!