A La Nina pattern in place could mean a warmer and slightly drier winter season for western Kentucky.
Christian County native Rick Shanklin is the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Paducah and said during a winter weather awareness virtual event that La Nina patterns of cooler temperatures on the Pacific Ocean normally spell a warmer than average winter here.
Even with those long-range forecasts showing warmer temperature trends, Shanklin says that certainly doesn’t mean the area won’t have a major winter storm or two in the coming months and La Nina can also mean more severe thunderstorms and tornadoes than the norm.
Lead Forecaster Christine Wielgos notes the average snowfall for a winter season in western Kentucky is about 10 inches. While we’ve struggled to get more than a couple inches in some winters, she notes single events have exceeded the average in other years.
Forecasters say now is the time to prepare for the winter by being sure you have all of the supplies you need in your home and vehicle, should the area experience a major storm such as the 1994 or 2009 ice storms when power was knocked out to much of the area and traveling was extremely difficult to impossible.
