by Matt Hughes
J-E News Editor
The storm front that moved through the area over the weekend passed a little further to the north than expected, taking the bulk of the snowfall with it, but that still did not spare Webster County residents from what officials are referring to as a “polar vortex”.
By 6:00 a.m. on Monday the temperature had dropped to -1 in the county, with wind chills of 10 to 15 degrees below zero. Temperatures throughout the day didn’t rise much more than 1 or 2 above zero.
“The Providence area would have to go back to at least the early and mid-80’s to find temperatures of this magnitude,” said Kevin Smith with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Paducah. “We have a weather observer in Providence, but they had some electrical issues, so it’s hard to say whether or not you broke any specific local records. They did report -1 at 7:00 a.m. on Monday, and +1 at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday.”
Smith said that, working from that data, the only lower temperatures he could find for the Providence area date all the way back to 1982 and 1985.
“It got down to -16 on January 17 and 18, 1982 and then on January 20, 1985,” Smith said. “The tenth coldest day on record was -7 on January 11, 1982.”
He also added that January 20, 1982 had the lowest high temperature on his records of Providence, which only date back to the late 1970’s. That day the temperature topped out at 0.
The polar vortex did bring with it temperatures that were colder than anything we had seen since 1985. The closest was in 1996.
NWS lists February 2 through the 5 of 1996 as one of the coldest stretches on record for south western Kentucky.
“This was the worst cold snap of the 1995-96 winter season. The high temperature at Paducah on the 3rd was 7 degrees, making this one of the coldest February days on record,” says a NWS report on Storm Data and Unusual Weather Phenomena. “The low at Paducah was 3 below zero on both the 3rd and 4th. The cold weather caused water lines to freeze up in many homes, and several water main breaks occurred in Paducah. Some heating systems were overtaxed by the cold weather and broke down. Plumbers were kept busy repairing burst water pipes. Some homes received water damage as a result of burst pipes. A school was closed for a day when a burst water pipe flooded the basement with 3 feet of water, breaking the heating system. The TVA set an all-time record for power demand on the 5th. Several house fires were started by people trying to thaw pipes. At least four buildings in Marshall and McCracken Counties were heavily damaged or destroyed by fires related to the cold weather.” (http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pah/storm/dat/pahfeb96.pdf)
This time around there have been fewer tragedies reported, perhaps due to better preparation from those who lived through the ‘09 ice storm. But it did not go without a hitch.
At approximately 8:30 a.m. on Monday, January 6, 2014, residents of Providence got a surprise when the electricity unexpectedly went out.
Power was on and off for about an hour before being restored for good.
According to a source with Providence Light and Water, a breaker at the substation on Noble Alley, just off of Cedar Street failed. After a number of attempts to return the breaker to service, resulting in the off-again-on-again power some residents noticed, crews switched service to a backup breaker.
Kentucky Utilities was notified that they needed to replace the failed breaker.
Temperatures are predicted to rise during the remaineder of the week, as the polar vortex heads back to the far north.
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