1 year anneversery of record cold, damaging winds on december 23rd/24th 2022

On December 23rd 2022, an extremely powerful low pressure system tracked over the great lakes, intensifying rapidly to at least 968mb, which is equivalent to the pressure of a category 2 hurricane. This resulted in a very tight pressure gradient over our region, resulting in damaging winds, and a powerful cold front that dropped temperatures so rapidly that it caused a flash freeze. This storm was one of the most impactful storms in recent history given that it was during an extremely busy travel period, and that it was impacting the eastern half of the country. 

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The combination of intense cold air advection, good mixing, and a very tight pressure gradient overhead led to a prefect set up for damaging winds. Widespread wind gusts of 50-60mph were recorded across the area with some gusts between 60 and 70mph. The strongest gust recorded in central MD was 68mph in east central Frederick county. Other impressive gusts include 63mph at BWI, 57mph in Ballenger Creek 58mph in Owings Mills, and 55mph in Manchester. 

These winds combined with saturated soil resulted in widespread wind damage with many trees coming down as well as powerlines. In addition, several reports of structural damage were observed. The most significant that we were aware of was in Westminster when a portion of a roof was blown off a shopping center. Unfortunately, there was 1 fatality due the wind, in Frederick county when a tree fell onto a mans car. 

For the first time in many years, a wind chill advisory (shown in light blue area wide above) had to be issued by NWS due to the forecast of low temperatures between -5 and +10 degrees, with wind chills of -10 to -20 degrees. This life threatening cold is not something we see very often around here and was a real shock to the system for many people. As cold as it was here, places in the Midwest dropped as much as 50 degrees in just a few hours, with wind chills as much as 50 degrees BELOW ZERO!

Some record low temperatures were set as well. The wind chills were extremely impressive across the region as well. Mount airy had a wind chill of -14, BWI of -12, Owings Mills of -17, Manchester of -19, and Glenelg of -20! These temperatures resulted in a flash freeze which turned any remaining moisture from rain the previous day immediately into a sheet of ice resulting in hazardous travel. In fact it got so cold that the door knobs on the INSIDE side of my doors on my house were covered in frost...I have never experienced anything like that before.

​Forecaster Jack