LIMA, OH (WLIO) - After hitting temperatures near 60° on Christmas Day 2021, this is the year Mother Nature is finally providing the snow. While our recent storm didn't produce more than a couple of inches, the development of a very strong system is providing several hazards including high winds and extreme cold.
"We don't get these very often, occasionally we do. This is about a once every 5 or 10-year kind of event," says National Weather Service Meteorologist Amos Dodson.
As a winter storm sweeps across the country, chances are you've heard it being referred to as a bomb cyclone. That sounds menacing, but it's a way to describe a storm that intensifies dramatically over a 24-hour period. The storm that developed this week dropped about 30 millibars in 24 hours, well into the criteria for a bomb cyclone of 24 millibars. That huge drop in pressure is what makes this such a windy storm. As the air attempts to fill the void in pressure, we feel that as strong wind.
The cold and windy system gives us a white Christmas, something we haven't experienced in several years.
"It's not too common in the Lima area just because it is typically still a little warm during December. A lot of times we don't have the snowfall," adds Dodson.
To officially have a white Christmas, we need to have at least 1" of snow on the ground by Christmas morning. Our recent storm only dropped a couple of inches, but the cold temperatures should ensure we meet the criteria. We've only experienced one white Christmas over the past decade. In the last 30 years, white Christmases occurred just over 25% of the time.
Breaking it down by the decade, anyone growing up in the 1960s experienced many holidays that were white. Meanwhile, the past decade featured the least on record.
Scanning through our records, the snowiest Christmas Day brought 4.2" in 2002. The deepest snow depth on the ground was 9" in 2004". You may recall a major pre-Christmas storm hit in 2004 that dumped nearly two feet in Bellefontaine.
Looking over temperature extremes, our warmest was 64° in 1982. The 59° high observed last Christmas ranks as 3rd warmest on record. This year is set to bring our third coldest Christmas Day high temperature on record. Our lowest temperature of -17° in 1983 will be safe.
