The WATE guys did miss big time on snow totals. Thursday night, the day before the blizzard started, Hinkin said "you're hearing these wild snow totals thrown around, but folks, it's March and that's not happening.' He forecast 6 inches for the Valley areas and 12 inches for the mountains at that time. I actually had a bet with my uncle, who'd watched Hinkin and didn't believe we'd get more than 10 inches.
This is one of my 3 or 4 most clear weather memories. I can still remember being outside around 2 pm Friday and it started snowing here. It was probably in the mid 30s at the time. I drove to town around 4 and it was snowing hard but the road and ground were still fairly warm so it wasn't sticking. I had ordered a pizza and they messed it up so I had to wait for another one. It was really coming down as I drove back home. The ground was starting to get white in town at around 1100-1200 feet. As I climbed towards the house, as is often the case the accumulation got thicker and thicker. I had 2 inches on the ground already when I arrived home. It was still raining over a good portion of the central valley through that evening per the Knoxville TV stations, there wasn't a drop of rain for the entire event here. It had snowed 5 inches by midnight at my house. But it wasn't snowing particularly hard at that point and I kept being worried that the forecast wasn't going to come to pass.
I woke up at 8 am the next morning to howling winds and it looked like we were in a thick fog. It was 21 degrees, winds were around 35 mph with higher gusts. I found a wind sheltered area and took 3 measurements. There was as closely as I could figure, 11 inches of snow on the ground. It had snowed 6 more inches basically in the 8 hours since midnight. Between 8 and 11 am it snowed 11 more inches. The heaviest sustained snow I've ever seen. It snowed and blowed the rest of the afternoon but not as heavily as that 3 hour span. Oddly, later that night around 1 am after the snow had seemingly ended, we had a burst of heavy snow that just absolutely poured down for about 30 minutes and added 1 inch or so to my total. I assume it was flow related. I was well over 2 feet by the time it was over and my cousins 1000 feet above me were close to 3 feet. I had a 1977 F-150 with 33 inch tires. It snowed the bed of the truck completely full, which is 21 inches deep, and then it just blew the snow off that would have piled up over the bed. I drove it the next day and the front bumper of my truck was plowing snow.
I am forever pissed at the local paper who reported that the area only received 12 inches of snow. They were never known for having the best reporters. They did mention that the higher mountain areas received 36 inches of snow. I still have that paper as well as one from Lake City who more accurately reported 18-24+ inch totals in the valley areas. The drifts were amazing, some were 15 feet deep and 6 foot drifts were common. There's a letter to the editor in one of them from a person who moved here from Ohio and talked about never seeing anything like this up there. Their power went out and they mentioned crossing HWY 63 in Eastern Campbell County in neck deep drifts because their neighbor came to check on them and then invited them to stay in their wood heated home until power was restored. Also a gesture she wasn't used to per her letter.
93 has seared my brain forever. Almost everything you mention even for the valley is spot on, 2 days before watching WRCB in Chattanooga Paul Barys coming right out and saying very frankly we are in for a potential blizzard and used the word blizzard. I remember people saying he was crazy all the way up till the storm, then couldn't believe he was right. I do remember it raining at my house until about midnight that night, then giant wet flakes and the wind was literally howling outside. I remember waking up at about 4AM because the wind literally was loud, peaked out the door only for the wind to blow a crazy amount of snow in so I slammed it shut, then went to the window and could barely see the street light just outside the house by about 100 feet, it was snowing so hard it was blurred that much. Then to my complete shock I witnessed then and still the only time in the eastern US, thundersnow. Everything ourside went purple, I say everything but really it was just snowing so hard you could only see just this bright purple flash then the thunder which was muffled but definitely thunder after it was pretty incredible. Then of course having no power for a week afterward, and the morning after all you could smell was pine from all the fallen trees. So much damage, it was incredible. My yard averaged 20" of snow with drifts up to 5', I was 13 and 5' snow drifts were up to my armpits. Will never forget that storm!
Historic Tennessee Valley Cold, Snow, and Ice Events
in Tennessee Valley
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93 has seared my brain forever. Almost everything you mention even for the valley is spot on, 2 days before watching WRCB in Chattanooga Paul Barys coming right out and saying very frankly we are in for a potential blizzard and used the word blizzard. I remember people saying he was crazy all the way up till the storm, then couldn't believe he was right. I do remember it raining at my house until about midnight that night, then giant wet flakes and the wind was literally howling outside. I remember waking up at about 4AM because the wind literally was loud, peaked out the door only for the wind to blow a crazy amount of snow in so I slammed it shut, then went to the window and could barely see the street light just outside the house by about 100 feet, it was snowing so hard it was blurred that much. Then to my complete shock I witnessed then and still the only time in the eastern US, thundersnow. Everything ourside went purple, I say everything but really it was just snowing so hard you could only see just this bright purple flash then the thunder which was muffled but definitely thunder after it was pretty incredible. Then of course having no power for a week afterward, and the morning after all you could smell was pine from all the fallen trees. So much damage, it was incredible. My yard averaged 20" of snow with drifts up to 5', I was 13 and 5' snow drifts were up to my armpits. Will never forget that storm!