Looking back at the last 50 years of snowfall in Evansville and Henderson

Winter is coming. And if you're one of those people who get excited about the meteorological aspects of the season, you're probably hoping for some snow.

There have been a few notable big-impact winter weather seasons in the Tri-State over the past few decades.

The ice storm that hit the Ohio Valley in January 2009 caused severe power outages and crippled infrastructure for weeks.

In 2004, three days before Christmas, just over 19 inches of snow barreled down on Evansville, a record for a single day's snowfall in the area. The winter of 1969-70 brought with it nearly 38 inches of powder, the most since at least 1948, which is as far back as the National Weather Service's data goes.

More: 3 odd stories from past Evansville-area snow storms, including a car delivery to remember

Michael York, a meteorologist who studies storm data and winter weather at the weather agency's Paducah, Kentucky office, has worked in the area forecasting snowstorms since 1994. An alumnus of Lyndon State College in Vermont — a state that knows all too well about crazy snowstorms — York is a self-professed lover of heavy snowfalls. York's office handles forecasts for the entire Tri-State.

"I do chase snowstorms," York said. "In fact, I went up to Chicago last year to get in a snowstorm."

Paducah's National Weather Service office forecasts winter weather in seven-day outlooks. York considers himself the "concentration point" for all the data collection on winter weather. He organizes all the latest information on their winter operations and makes it available for the public.

When it comes to forecasting snowfall, York said Evansville and Henderson aren't any more or less predictable than anywhere else in the country.

"Around here, the big thing is precipitation type because we're far enough south that most of our winter events are not all snow," York said. "(Storms) either start as rain or a mix and they go back-and-forth. It's hard to get all snow here."

There are a lot of variables that go into predicting snowfall patterns, York said. How much of the forecasted precipitation is liquid or sleet? How much ice will a bout of freezing rain produce? How close will the storm get to the area?

If a storm gets too close, York said, it could bring in enough warm air to turn the snow into rain. And if the storm moves too far to the south, it will bring the requisite amount of cold air for a storm, but not enough precipitation. Usually, the office's computer prediction models aren't in agreement until the storm is close.

York said seasonal winter forecasts are still in their infancy and not always reliable. For big storms, like the 19.3-inch dumping on Dec. 22, 2004, he said the office can forecast the estimated snowfall up to a week in advance. But the smaller storms have a way of sneaking up with less notice.

On its website, NWS Paducah keeps data on seasonal snowfall totals in Evansville dating back to 1948. That list is provided below along with anecdotes from York about certain notable years.

The last 50 years of Evansville seasonal snowfall (from October to April) totals:

1970-71: 22.5 inches

71-72: 7.6

72-73: 6.3

73-74: 15.2

74-75: 19.1

75-76: 6.9

76-77: 26.8

77-78: 37.4*

*York: "(The winter of 1977-78) was harsh nationwide. Anyone 50 or older remembers the winters of the late 1970s. I believe the Ohio River froze over all the way down to Paducah. There were multiple blizzards and anyone who lived up in Chicago, or in New England where I was, clearly remember not just that winter, but the preceding one, as bad. I'm still not sure we have a handle on the cause of it."

78-79: 23.6*

*York: "There was something going on (regarding snowfall trends in the late-1970s). It was back-to-back winters that were extremely abnormal. We do know that it's more than just El Nino or La Nina (oceanic temperature-change phenomena that drives winter weather in parts of the U.S. and the rest of the world). There's something going on in the arctic, called the Arctic Oscillation, there's the North Atlantic Oscillation, but those are less understood and not as easily forecastable."

79-80: 16.3

80-81: 3.4

81-82: 15

82-83: 4.1

83-84: 19.6

84-85: 26.4

85-86: 10.7

86-87: 7.7

87-88: 7.4

88-89: 3.6

89-90: 13.3

90-91: 9.4

91-92: 3.3

92-93: 20.7*

*Over the course of two days in mid-February, 1993, Evansville got 7.4 inches of snow. A week-and-a-half later, on Feb. 25, the city got 10.9 inches dumped on it.

93-94: 24.4

94-95: 2.1

95-96: 29.7

96-97: 7

97-98: 20.6

98-99: 8.7

99-00: 4.4

00-01: 17.3

01-02: 6.1

02-03: 21

03-04: 7

04-05: 22.6*

York: "(The Dec. 22, 2004 snowstorm) was very memorable, it occurred in two waves. In the morning it came down pretty heavily, about four inches. I drove my wife into work and then there was a kind-of lull for a few hours. Then it came down really hot-and-heavy from early-afternoon on. It just kept snowing through the evening and finally ended around midnight. The wind was blowing so hard it was almost at blizzard-level, which is 35 mph. I only lived about a mile from the office and when I tried to drive in, I got stuck in a snowdrift. Quite a few people had four-wheel-drive in their cars, but I had a four-cylinder Toyota Camry, so I didn't stand a chance."

05-06: 5.8

06-07: 3.6

07-08: 10.5

08-09: 7.3

09-10: 15.3

10-11: 15.5

11-12: 0.5

12-13: 12.3

13-14: 12.6

14-15: 18.5*

15-16: 14.2*

York: There's a trend toward heavier-precipitation events. We had back-to-back 12-inch storms in 2014-15 and again in 2015-16. The potential for very-heavy is higher, but a lot of times it comes over a shorter period. Instead of falling gently over a couple days, it all just comes down in five to six hours.

(March, 2015 saw 8.5 inches of snow fall in Evansville, good for fifth-most in the history of the month.)

16-17: 1.4

17-18: 12.1

18-19: 8.8

19-20: 1.1

20-21: 7.8

Though he's a native New Englander, York prefers living where he's at now in Paducah. Why? Because when it comes to weather, this area has it all.

"We've got all four seasons," York said. "We do get heavy snowstorms, tornadoes and hot weather, but I wouldn't want to live in Florida or Michigan. This is the right latitude for me.

More: 4 stories from the worst snow storms in Evansville history | Webb

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Looking back at 50 years of snowfall in Evansville and Henderson