More than 50,000 Kentuckians without power as winter storm hammers region
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Kentucky is hit with significant winter storm
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for many areas of the state.
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A major winter storm that began Sunday morning and continued overnight Monday blanketed Kentucky in snow and ice, leaving thousands of people without power.
And it’s not quite finished yet.
A winter storm warning remains in effect until 7 p.m. Monday for Central Kentucky and until 1 a.m. Tuesday for part of northeastern Kentucky. The National Weather Service’s forecast for Lexington said snow and freezing rain will shift to all snow after 2 p.m., then gradually stop, with up to 0.1 inches of new ice accumulation and an inch or two of new snow accumulation possible Monday. Wind gusts as high as 26 mph were possible.
The precipitation will be followed by days of sub-freezing temperatures.
As of just before 4 p.m., just over 55,000 Kentuckians were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages across the nation. There were also significant outages reported in Virginia and West Virginia..
The tracker showed 4,244 outages in Fayette County just before 4 p.m., down from 8,821 outages as of just after 8:30 a.m. Many outages were reported in other counties along the Interstate 64 corridor, too.
Kentucky Utilities’ online outage map reported 11,203 of its customers were without power across the state as of Monday afternoon.
Kentucky Power said it had about 10,000 customers without power as of 10 a.m. Monday.
“Crews are reporting broken poles and spans of downed wire caused by fallen trees as the main cause for outages so far,” Kentucky Power said in a news release.
The company, which serves about 20 counties in Eastern Kentucky, said restoring power “will be a multi-day event.”
“Our first priority is to address outages that impact critical services, including hospitals, emergency services, public safety facilities, and emergency shelters. After these are resolved, our crews focus on residential and business customers,” the release stated. “We typically prioritize larger outages that affect more customers, as our goal is to restore service to the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. As a result, outages affecting smaller groups or individual customers will be addressed later in the restoration process.”
A layer of freezing rain WKYT Chief Meteorologist Chris Bailey said measured more than half an inch in some places fell overnight atop several inches of snow laid down by the storm Sunday.
If you’ve lost power at your home or business and are wondering about your neighbors, restoration time or how to report downed lines, we’ve rounded up some information.
Below are outage maps for the Lexington area, including one from Kentucky Utilities Co., and links to find maps for Blue Grass Energy and multiple Kentucky electric cooperatives.
Kentucky Utilities Co.
To see this map on the KU website, click here. Customers can report a power outage by texting “OUTAGE” to 454358, calling 800-981-0600, by logging into their online account or with KU’s mobile app.
Blue Grass Energy and other co-ops
Blue Grass Energy is reporting outages via map online here. Members can report an outage online or by calling 888-655-4243.
For other electrical co-ops serving Kentucky, find the Kentucky Electric Cooperatives outage map here. Members must report outages directly to their co-op.
Do you have a question about weather in Kentucky for our service journalism team? We’d like to hear from you. Fill out our Know Your Kentucky form or email ask@herald-leader.com.
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 6:41 AM.
