John1122

The data for February at Tri-Cities is still missing, but I found some other reports in scholarly articles and also I found a mention of snowfall at Tri-Cities and Knoxville on a youtube video of live coverage of the event from a Huntsville tv station. I also noticed that even though official records say M on snowfall and list the entire month of February 1996 with 2.9 inches if snowfall at Tri, the snow depth goes from 0 on 1-31-96 to 13 inches on 2-2-96. Then I looked at nearby sites and found the range of snowfall. So in the Tri/SW Va area the lowest I found was 13 inches. The highest was 16 inches. You could even pick out areas that saw 12+ inches of snow by temperature. It was 6-10 degrees colder in those areas than it was in areas that saw less snow.

I mentioned earlier that I was going to write a little about what I remember and some observations about the February 1996 monster winter storm and Arctic outbreak that capped off winter. The Blizzard of 96 gets more headlines, but this event was much more significant for most of our region. We all felt the frigid cold. Far western areas like Memphis to Dyersburg to NE Arkansas had the least precip, as there was a sharp cutoff between Memphis and Oxford. Batesville Northeast into the eastern 3/4ths of Tennessee, and Northern Alabama saw major league severe winter weather. Far southeast areas from Chattanooga east were warmed nosed and missed on the massive winter precip but still had moderate wintery precip and got extremely cold as well. The stage was set with fresh Arctic cold a few days before the storm. The storm formed on an Arctic front in South Texas. Areas far south such as Jackson and Monroe began seeing frozen precip on Thursday the first. It began spreading NE into the surface cold as Thursday progressed. 850 temps were around 50 while surface temps were in the 20s and low 30s across Northern Miss, North and NW Alabama and Southern Tennessee. Sleet and freezing rain fell over Memphis but extremely heavy freezing rain developed around Oxford and worked it's way into Middle Tennessee. Nashville saw sleet and ZR, as did Huntsville, Alabama. Temperatures that Thursday stayed in the 20s from just North of Chattanooga to the Tri Cities in East Tennessee. I was working in Jefferson County that day. I remember riding to work and the winter storm warnings started rolling in over the radio. By Thursday at around 5pm-7pm snow had over spread most of Middle and East Tennessee and Southern Kentucky except for far NE areas. Southern Middle was sleet and snow mixed. Mississippi was under a state of emergency with 1-2 inches of solid ice. Northern Alabama was getting there slowly with freezing rain that would soon mix with sleet. By 9pm Thursday heavy snow was falling from Nashville to Knoxville. This would continue over northern Miss. Northern Alabama, southern Middle and East Tennessee into SWVA for the next 12-18 hours. There was thundersnow and thunder sleet across the south. Temperatures fell rapidly with the slow and ice happening with surface temps in the upper 10s and low 20s. Fayetteville in Southern Middle had freezing rain to sleet to snow with a temp range of 26 falling to 19 during the event. At midnight Crossville had heavy snow and 19, Nashville snow and 20, Tri Cities heavy snow and 20, Knoxville heavy snow and 23. Chattanooga had been stuck at 33 with rain but they transitioned to ice then sleet and finally to snow. With 3 inches of snowfall on top of ice during the event. Extremely heavy snow developed in small area of Roane, Northern Knox, southern Anderson, Union and Jefferson County. This boosted their totals to all time type snowfall records. At the end of the precip Northern Mississippi saw 3 inches of solid ice/snow. Northern Alabama had similar totals with slightly less ice and a bit more snow. Southern Middle Tennessee had 1 inch of ice and 4-5 inches of snow. Nashville had 5 inches of snow on top of ice. Cookeville had 6 inches of snow on top of ice. The western Plateau areas saw 11-14 inches of snow. Southern Kentucky saw 7-10 inches. The Eastern Plateau areas such as Oneida, Lafollette and Cumberland Gap saw 14-17 inches of snow. The Northeastern Valley from Morristown NE into SWVA saw 13-17 inches of snow. The areas from Rockwood to Halls to Maynardville where the enhanced thundersnow went on picked up 18-22 inches of snow. For whatever reason, Tyson only recorded 8 inches from the event. Specific snowfall reports I witnessed or have found from various NWS sites. Nashville 5 inches. Cookeville 6 inches. Huntsville, Ala 3 inches - lots of ice. Batesville Miss 3.2 inches + ice. Chattanooga 3 inches + ice. Knoxville Tys 8 inches. Rockwood reported 8.5 inches on .82 precip, data missing for the next day with 1.09 precip falling. Likely 20 inches in Rockwood. Lenoir City 9 inches. LaFollette 17 inches (observed this myself) Norris 18 inches. (Observed this myself.) Maynardville 21 inches. (co-worker lived there.) Halls 19 inches. (Maynardville co-worker observed) Crossville 13 inches. Jamestown 13 inches. Fayetteville 4 inches - lots of ice. Tazewell, Tn 15 inches. Greenville, Tn 11 inches. Bristol, Tn 13 inches. Kingsport 14 inches. Abington, Va 16 inches. Middlesboro, Ky 10 inches. Corbin, Ky 9 inches. Knoxville Exp Station 2.08, all frozen, missing data. Likely 18+ inches of snow. So generally most of the area saw frozen, a good bit of it had double digit snowfall totals that rivaled the Bizzard of 1993. The cold that followed was record setting for February. The air mass produced Minnesota's all time record low of -60. Temperatures here were widespread below 0. The very few areas that stayed above zero in far southern areas had lows in 1-3 range. Most areas with snowpack were at least -10 with quite a few -20 or colder readings. It was -20 imby, -20 in Spara, -22 in Tazewell, -23 at the Greenville experimental station. It was -16 in Crossville, Norris and Kingsport and -10 to -15 from Murfreesboro to Northern Knoxville to Morristown. High temps were in the upper single digits across Northern areas from Tazewell west to Dyersburg. Only around 10-12 in many others. As far south as Huntsville the high temp was only 13 in the wake of the storm. Mt LeConte didn't have notably different temperatures than the rest of the area, it was actually slightly warmer February 5th than other areas. -17 was as cold as it got. After looking back on it, this may be the most impressive winter event of my lifetime. Virtually as cold as 1985 with snowfall amounts rivaling the blizzard of 1993, plus a massive ice event for west and SW valley areas.

The Claiborne Progress reported that they received a report of a tornado on the ground in Tazewell, but it may have been a prank, because apparently the report says the touchdown was on the football field at a local middle school.

Noticed some big cells in Middle Valley areas. Heavy rain here right now but just a rumble or two of thunder every 4 or 5 minutes so far. Looks like Nashville is getting some flooding too. Looks like cells in Eastern Arkansas might reach West Tennessee. At least the heat may break there. The H.I in Memphis is 111 and 112 in Jackson with an 80 degree dp.

Had another .55 so far today and a wall of heavy rain is about to move into the area. Flooding is breaking out in Scott and Morgan County and likely will here over the next few hours if that holds together.

Definitely juice for the storms that are starting to pop out there. Currently 80 degrees with a DP of 73. Tornado warning popped in Eastern Ky.

Really hope we can catch a break with the storms tomorrow. This has been the year of downed trees. Ground is extra saturated from non-stop rain and tree loss is increased significantly in these severe thunderstorms.

Powerful storms here and I imagine across the area. Virtually all of Campbell Co is without power right now. Trees are down everywhere. One fell on a car as it was driving. Just a fast moving bull dozer. It made it across the county in 10 minutes.

Saw a video of the Rutledge Pike area, looked like a rain wrapped tornado there. Extremely strong rotation for sure.

Right at an inch of rain so far today. Probably another inch to 1.5 over the next day or so.

Norris finally fell enough to reopen schools here tomorrow, though some roads are still closed. It's 10 feet above full summer pool. Even with the spill ways wide open they could only let water out at about 1/2 the rate it was coming in until today, when it finally dropped below the output. It's only supposed to fall 6 inches over the next few days though. Any more rain will be too much rain.

Beginning to hear deep bass thunder to the SW of me, rain picking back up as well. This should hopefully be the final push.

They are rough but they are 100+ year old wagon roads, turned logging roads. They usually hold up no matter what the weather. Not as prone to mudslides.

Good thing I got what I needed earlier today. This is the road below my house between myself and town. There's other ways out but they require a good 4x4.

It's finally stopped raining here. Not sure how long the break will be. The mountain sides look so unique during these times. All the dry washes are full and it's like long silver streaks flashing down the brown hillsides.

As far as any record of mine or my grandfather's, yes.

Still pouring down here. The major creek near the house is the 2nd highest I've ever seen it. In an area that's normally around 3 feet deep it's currently around 16 feet deep based on it's height on an old railroad piling that sits in the middle of it. The railroad piling is normally about 12-14 feet out of the water, the water is currently around a foot below the top. A few years ago the creek got high enough to leave a log sitting on top of the piling.

I have now crossed 15 inches of rain this month. Over half of that has fallen in the last few days.

Saw that Tri-Cities set the record today for rain for the month. Already significantly over with more to come.

Norris Dam reporting record breaking inflow into the lake of 66,000 cubic feet per second (500,000 gallons per second). They are currently releasing 14,000 CFS and the lake is at summer full pool and rising rapidly, expected to rise 6 feet in the next 36 hours.

MRX is forecasting 2 more inches tonight for me. The hi-res short term models are having epic struggles with this system. Way under doing precip amounts and even initializing incorrectly with precip placement and intensity. The long range globals and the lower res NAM products seem to be doing the best.

Pretty impressive state wide totals. I'm at 12.39 as of right now.

It's just pouring cats and dogs out there right now, the fire hose is aimed right up into my back yard and down across southern Middle Tennessee. I live very near the divide, where the runoff either flows into the Tennessee river, or the Cumberland River. Two creeks behind my house flow into the Cumberland eventually and a three more meet just a few hundred yards away and they form a larger one that eventually drains into the Tennessee. Looking at the HRRR the flow from Southern Middle up the Plateau looks to continue for the next 18 hours almost unabated. Even with that said, it didn't initialize very well, it didn't show my area getting rain right now but I'm getting pounded. The 06z RGEM really brings the heavy stuff. The NAM 3K is the lightest, but I'll go ahead and declare it wrong immediately. I've had as almost as much rain since 1am when it initialized as it shows falling here for the next 60 hours. It only shows .6 or .7 here during that entire span. I'm getting training 35-40 dbz for the last hour and a half. That's about .35 or so inches of rain per hour.

Crossing 3 inches for the current event as we speak. Pounding down with occasional thunder. About a week ago the Euro showed 24 hours of thunder sitting right over us and I was skeptical, it's basically been correct.

Lots of thunder with the rain here. Had some trees blown across roads this morning. Soaked ground plus wind gusts in the storms did their damage. Amazingly heavy drops here today. Like big summer showers. Except it's cold.