White Christmas appears to be unlikely this year in Union County
<p class="p1">Union County residents who are dreaming of a white Christmas are likely to be disappointed this year.</p><p class="p1">Christmas is Friday, Dec. 25. The National Weather Service office in Paducah was predicting unseasonably mild conditions for Friday.</p><p class="p1">The Christmas Day forecast posted on the weather service office's website called for a chance of showers, a partly sunny sky and a high temperature near 58 degrees.</p><p class="p1">Climate statistics have been recorded at the Barkley Regional Airport in West Paducah since 1949. Prior to that time, records were observed in downtown Paducah back to December 1937.</p><p class="p1">"A good majority" of Christmas Days in the region have seen high temperatures in the 30s and 40s.</p><p class="p1">The normal high temperature for Christmas Day is 44 degrees.</p><p class="p1">The warmest high on record at Paducah was 69 degrees in 1982. </p><p class="p1">The coldest high came a year later: an icy 12 degrees in 1983. The high also failed to reach 20 degrees in 1985, when the high was 19.</p><p class="p1">On most Christmas mornings, people in the region wake up to temperatures in the 20s and 30s. </p><p class="p1">The warmest low on record was 50 degrees, recorded in 1982.</p><p class="p1">The top two coldest low temperatures included 8 degrees below zero in 2004 and 5 degrees below zero in 1983.</p><p class="p1">There have been eight years which were classified as white Christmases, with a snow depth of 1 inch or more. This last happened in 2010, when 3 inches of snow were on the ground. </p><p class="p1">The deepest snow depth on Christmas morning was back in 2004, with 9 inches on the ground.</p><p class="p1">Other Christmases with snow on the ground included 1963, with 5.0 inches; 1969, with 4.0 inches; 2010, with 3.0 inches; and 1966, with 2.0 inches.</p><p class="p1">In 2014, the weather on Christmas Day featured a high of 50 and a low of 35, with no snow on the ground.</p><p class="p2"> </p>