This got me to thinking about the trend of warmer winters since 1998ish. My earliest winter memories start around 1975. I decided to look back at my grandfathers low temp records for here to see how often we slipped below 5 degrees here in the winters since then.
1975: 4 Degrees December 19th
1976: -5 January 9th
1977: -10 January 19th - Also -7 January 29th with several other subzero days.
1978: -2 January 11th
1979: -10 February 10th
1980: 4 February 2nd
1981: -2 January 12th
1982: -14 January 17th - many days below 0 with a -10 on Jan 11th
1983: -8 December 25th, -4 on December 24th.
1984: -2 January 21st, 0 on the 20th and 22nd.
1985: -28 January 21st, -22 January 20th.
1986: -5 January 27th and 28th
1987: 2 January 27th
1988: 0 February 6th
1989: -10 December 22nd, high was 0 that day.
1990: No temps below 5.
1991: 0 February 16th
1992: 2 January 16th
1993: 0 March 15th, blizzard was good.
1994: -14 January 19th, -10 18th, two other days below 0 in the month.
1995: -4 February 8th, -1 on the 7th. 4th-14th was very cold and snowy. Last yr for my grandpa. He died Mar 16th at 90.
1996: -20 February 5th. 15 inches of snow on the ground. Last extreme cold event (below -5 imo) in East Tennessee.
1997: 1 January 11th
1998: No temps below 5
1999: No temps below 5
2000: 5 December 22nd
2001: 2 January 3rd
2002: No temps below 5
2003: -4 January 18th (last sub zero)
2004: 2 December 20th
2005: No temps below 5.
2006: No temps below 5.
2007: No temps below 5.
2008: 4 January 20th
2009: 0 January 16th
2010: 3 December 14th
2011: 4 January 14th
2012: No temps below 5.
2013: No temps below 5.