Light snow began falling before dawn on Monday, January 16th, 1978 and continued throughout the day with a total of 8 inches by the end of the day. As the 16th came to a conclusion, it appeared the worse was over. However, shortly after midnight on January the 17th it began snowing heavily once again. Moderate to heavy snow continued through mid morning on the 17th and ended as flurries that afternoon. When it was all over, a whopping 15.7 inches of snow had fallen! This number stood as the heaviest 24 hour snowfall in Louisville history until... you guessed it, January 17th of 1994.

With temperatures in the low 20’s, precipitation began falling in the form of freezing rain during the evening hours of Sunday January 16th, 1994. After a half inch icy glaze had already fallen, the freezing rain changed to a heavy snow by midnight on January 17th. The heavy snow continued through the overnight hours and was accompanied by lightning and thunder at times. Although the accumulating snow had ended by 8am on the 17th, 15.9 inches of snow had already fallen! This eclipsed the old 24 hour record set during 1978 storm and still stands as Louisville’s heaviest snowfall to this day. What was most impressive about this storm was that almost 16 inches of snow fell in only 8 hours! That’s a rate of about 2 inches an hour! Two days later, another record was set... The all time coldest temperature in Louisville history, a bone chilling 22 degrees below zero!

Although we are not predicting a record breaking snowfall in the near future, the cold and wintry conditions look to be sticking around over the next week or two with several more chances at a Louisville snow. Stay tuned.