UGA Climatologist: Winter Storm Generational Event in Southeast

Clint ThompsonAlabama, Florida, Georgia

Photo courtesy of Cassenbaum Farms. Shows strawberry field in Lillian, Alabama, that received snowfall last week.

By Clint Thompson

The cold temperatures and historic snowfall recorded throughout the Southeast last week was a generational event, according to Pam Knox, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension agricultural climatologist.

Pam Knox

“Clearly, we don’t get these every day and it’s probably a good thing. Some of the locations set daily records for snowfall, so for them it was unusual,” Knox said. “We have had occasionally some big snows before. It’s not unprecedented, but it’s definitely very rare. I think a lot of the comments I was seeing were generational. You definitely have to go back quite a ways to find this much snow.”

Snow Totals

According to Chris Zelman, a meteorologist with WALB in Albany, Georgia, the amount of snowfall recorded throughout Southwest Georgia on Jan. 21-22 ranged from 2 inches to 9 inches in some areas. According to the Pensacola News Journal, there was 8.9 inches recorded in Pensacola, Florida, and 10 inches in nearby Milton, Florida.

Alabama farmer Todd Cassenbaum in Lillian, Alabama, reported eight inches of snow fell on his strawberry plants, which are a little more than a month away from being harvested.

Last week’s extended period of sub-freezing temperatures is symbolic of the cold weather conditions that have impacted the Southeast in January.

“We’ve had these blasts of cold air coming from the Arctic, and if you look at the map of the world as a whole, we are about the only place in the country that’s getting this right now,” Knox said. “Most parts of the world are above normal in temperature, and we are the focus of all of this cold air this year. Next year it could be Texas or Europe. This year it has just lined up for us to be the “beneficiary” of all of this combination of moisture coming in from the Gulf and really cold air coming in from the North Pole.”