Historic Tennessee Valley Cold, Snow, and Ice Events

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Alright, I have the first one. Below are the dates I picked. I started with the biggest ones on John's list and added ones I found in the KU book this AM.  I have figured out how to work the system better and found the correct link (in the links thread) to the daily 20th century reanalysis data, so am happy to plug any combination in y'all want!  

3-2-1942: No ENSO data; No QBO data

3-1-27: same as above

3-17-35 same as above

3-12-93: ENSO Neutral; W QBO

3-24-40: No data for either ENSO or QBO

3-1-54: EL Nino transitioning to Neutral; E QBO

3-2-60: ENSO Neutral; W transitioning to East based QBO

3-9-60: same as above

3-14-60: same as above

3-3-80: El Nino transitioning to neutral; E QBO

3-7-96: La Nina; E QBO

3-6-1992: El Nino; E QBO

[Holston_River_Rambler]

So this AM I thought it might be fun to add to the above image by looking at how we got to those dates.  We often see analogues for the date of a particular storm, but not the weeks before and if many storms come at the end of major blocking, it might be a good idea to check out how things looked before. Below are the images for one week (top) and then two weeks (bottom) before the events above. It seems to me the NAO snaps and holds the ball while the Pacific finally kicks it.  

[Carvers Gap]

Great work!  Nice information and graphic.  Looks to me like a -EPO ridge w some blocking over the Davis Straits is key...AND that the storms don't necessarily happen until the block matures and erodes just a bit.  

[Carvers Gap]

Also, notice that area of BN heights just east of HI...that is also a nice marker.

[Carvers Gap]

14 hours ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

Alright, I have the first one. Below are the dates I picked. I started with the biggest ones on John's list and added ones I found in the KU book this AM.  I have figured out how to work the system better and found the correct link (in the links thread) to the daily 20th century reanalysis data, so am happy to plug any combination in y'all want!  

3-2-1942

3-1-27

3-17-35

3-12-93

3-24-40

3-1-54

3-2-60

3-9-60

3-14-60

3-3-80

3-7-96

3-6-1992

Here is the d10-15 mean on the 0z EPS.  For comparison...not exact but interesting.  

[Holston_River_Rambler]

So, to be fair, I thought it might also be useful to look at big -NAOs (-1.0 or higher) that failed to produce anything in March.  I went through the NAO data on ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.nao.index.b500101.current.ascii and searched for values or -1.0 or higher.  Below are my results:

 

-1 or higher

3-10-51

3-28-51

3-27-52

3-12-54

3-6-58/ 3-21-58

3-1-62 (almost the whole month lower than -1.0)

3-6-69

3-30-70

3-30-71

3-28-75

3-24-77

3-18-79

3-20-80

3-18-81

3-26-81

3-1-2001

3-11-2005

3-1-06

3-10-2010

3-24-2011

3-21-2013

 

-2 or higher

2-13-78 (only one that was close to the dates we're looking for; there were some April ones, but that'e getting pretty late in the season)

 

-3 or higher

None in the winter

 

 

 

If John is willing, I thought it might be useful to look at his family records for a couple weeks after these dates to see if there were storms.  If no storm, then I would like to build a composite for those dates as well so we can see what sort of pattern with a -NAO might not produce winter weather.  

[John1122]

3-10-51 - It was below normal for the next week. It snowed 3 of those days, 2 inches total.

3-28-51 - It was below normal for a few days and there was a major rain event on 4-2, 1.5 inches of rain.

3-27-52 - The first week of April was below normal for the most part with a trace of snow and .3 inches of rain. April 5th and 6th were in the 40s/lower 30s with snow showers.

3-12-54 - Temps were below normal 8 of the next 10 days but mostly dry. Big warm up and rain days 11-14.

3-6-58 - Lost record but looking at CSV AND London, it got really cold for the rest of the month. There were 8 days of snowy weather after that. 2 1 inch snows, a 1/2 inch snow and 4 dustings. No temp above 60 the whole month.

3-21-58 See above. Major rain event 3/30.

3-1-62 (almost the whole month lower than -1.0) - 2 inches of snow on 3/5-6. Rain/Snow mix storm on 3-8/9 covered the ground with snow at the start and finish of a .8 inch rain event. Several big rainers, Temps were bn most of the month but not as cold as 1958.

3-6-69 - As mentioned prior, 3 inches of snow on March 6th, 5.5 inches on March 9th. Temps BN until the 18th. Two days the temps were -20+ below normal.

3-30-70 - Huge rainstorm April 1st and 2nd, almost 3 inches of rain. BN temps for the next week.

3-30-71 - Temps below normal, large rain event April 1st. Heavy wet snow event April 6th-7th, 3.5 inches of snow from .8 liquid.

3-28-75 - Turned cold, 1st week of April had 4 straight nights in the 20s. Trace of snowfall on April 3rd. No major storms.

3-24-77 - 10 straight days of very warm temps. Very rainy. 10 inches between 3/28 and 4/4.

3-18-79 - cold snap 25-28, snow showers each day that coated the ground.  Massive rain event April 1-4, 4 inches of rain.

3-20-80 - Temps were a roller coaster between 9 BN and 9 AN. Rained 4.5 inches on 3/20, .7 3/24 and 1.25 3/28.

3-18-81 -  Temps were well BN for the next 8 days. Snow showers 18-20th with dustings. Rain storm with .6 inches of rain the 22nd that ended as snow showers into the 23rd.

3-26-81 - Temps got warm, was 81 3/31, rain event 3/30 .75 inches.

3-1-2001  - Rain event on the 4th, .5 inches, ended as snow showers into the 5th and 6th with BN temps for 5 days.

3-11-2005 - Rain event 13th .30, wet snow showers the 16th and 17th that covered the ground at times. BN temps for several days.

3-1-06 - BN temps all but one day of the next week, when it warmed up and rained .5 inches 3/7-8. Snow showery weather  1st-3rd.

3-10-2010 - 1 inch of rain 3/11-12 with a brief cool down the following 4 days.

3-24-2011 - 35 degree temp drop from 3/22 with highs as low as the upper 30s by 3/31. .45 inches of rain 3/26, snow showers on the 27th, .35 rain the 28th, .62 rain the 30th, snow showers the 31st 

3-21-2013 - Temps in the 70s 3/16, highs in the 30s, lows in the 10s by 3/21 with snow showers, large rain event .80 3/24.

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Alright, I chose dates that seemed to me to have the worst outcome (rain, no snow, warm) and I threw in a few others on John's list that I found to have also happened after a recorded SSW. For the ones that happened after a SSW I have added ENSO state and QBO since it was included in the SSW information and I thought, why not, and so then went back and added ENSO state and QBO for the others. I will also go back and edit my posts for the big snows to include ENSO state and QBO data so they match these. 

Here are my dates: 

3-28-51: ENSO neutral; E QBO

3-12-54: had been El Nino, but in the FMA timeframe, dropped off quickly to 0.0; E QBO

3-6-69: SSW event on 13 March; El Nino; E  QBO

3-30-70: ENSO Neutral; E QBO

3-30-71: SSW event 20 March; La Nina; E QBO

3-24-77: El Nino transitioning to Neutral; E QBO

3-20-80: El Nino transitioning to Neutral; E QBO

3-18-81: SSW event 4 March; ENSO Neutral; W QBO

3-26-81: ENSO Neutral; W QBO

3-1-2001: SSW event Feb 11; La Nina; E QBO

 

To be honest it doesn't seem like any of those dates could have been big time snow producers for valley locations (could be wrong) and I will also add that many of the "worst" outcomes that I picked were at the end of March, so climo. may have played a part in those outcomes. I have attached images of composites of 500mb geopotential height anomalies for the time the -1.0 NAO began (top image), then the progression by one week (middle), and then by two weeks (last image). 

[John1122]

The common theme to March snows looked to be the Pacific being favorable.  It appeared that a weakening -EPO was a key driver. A strong one is really cold but really dry. 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

I'll also add this. As disheartening as it is, after looking at the NAO data today and having just looked at dates for big storms over the past few days, I think we want more mediocre NAO values. Some of the big dates had -NAOs, but most were under -1.0. But I think we've all agreed that it is as the big block decays that we get our chance(s). 

On the other hand there were no -NAOs below 3.0 in the winter in the period of record and I think only two on record at all, for any month. If this one goes that low who's to say what the outcome is.

I also don't like the look of the little ridge poking up on that first image. Looks familiar to what is being modeled with this persistent mid continent ridge that connects to that NAO. 

[Carvers Gap]

2 hours ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

I'll also add this. As disheartening as it is, after looking at the NAO data today and having just looked at dates for big storms over the past few days, I think we want more mediocre NAO values. Some of the big dates had -NAOs, but most were under -1.0. But I think we've all agreed that it is as the big block decays that we get our chance(s). 

On the other hand there were no -NAOs below 3.0 in the winter in the period of record and I think only two on record at all, for any month. If this one goes that low who's to say what the outcome is.

I also don't like the look of the little ridge poking up on that first image. Looks familiar to what is being modeled with this persistent mid continent ridge that connects to that NAO. 

Oh, we want a locked in -NAO in NE TN, unless you are in a place for upslope snow.  Otherwise, we need Miller As on my side of the Valley.  -NAOs slow the pattern enough to produce them.  One thing to keep in mind is that the Plateau westward usually requires a different look and they do indeed need the Pacific to cooperate.   We need the Atlantic over here.  Crazy, huh?  The mediocre values IMO are because the NAO begins to decay as you mention.  Most storms occur as the values begin to rise after bottoming out like your original maps.  It has to be strong before good patterns emerge for us.  The Weeklies have the NAO barely hitting neutral during the second half of March and early April.  -NAOs are more important for E TN because we can actually catch the fetch off the Atlantic for big coastal...middle and west usually do not.  Great work!

[Carvers Gap]

The odds of everything being exactly correct are very low.  We can get snows during bad patterns and miss during good patterns.  Many of the very big snows in the eastern Valley during March I am willing to bet occurred during -NAOs.  That is unlikely to be as true for points to our west.  But I do add again, rarely are things perfect.  We don't have to have multiple things in our favor...just a few things that work really well such as a -NAO or +PNA and/or a broad, full latitude block which is my favorite.  What we need is a general pattern look.  Also, the -QBO is definitely correlated w -NAOs and very snowy winters in NE TN.  The tricky thing about the QBO is there is a difference in QBO that has just turned negative and is falling and one that is rising though still negative.  Off the top of my head, a -QBO that is rising near neutral can be very warm during winter...but double check that.  The best QBO is one that drops during late fall or early winter like we had....ENSO is also a big factor which is currently in transition.  

[Carvers Gap]

9 hours ago, Holston_River_Rambler said:

So, to be fair, I thought it might also be useful to look at big -NAOs (-1.0 or higher) that failed to produce anything in March.  I went through the NAO data on ftp://ftp.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/cwlinks/norm.daily.nao.index.b500101.current.ascii and searched for values or -1.0 or higher.  Below are my results:

 

-1 or higher

3-10-51

3-28-51

3-27-52

3-12-54

3-6-58/ 3-21-58

3-1-62 (almost the whole month lower than -1.0)

3-6-69

3-30-70

3-30-71

3-28-75

3-24-77

3-18-79

3-20-80

3-18-81

3-26-81

3-1-2001

3-11-2005

3-1-06

3-10-2010

3-24-2011

3-21-2013

 

-2 or higher

2-13-78 (only one that was close to the dates we're looking for; there were some April ones, but that'e getting pretty late in the season)

 

-3 or higher

None in the winter

 

 

 

If John is willing, I thought it might be useful to look at his family records for a couple weeks after these dates to see if there were storms.  If no storm, then I would like to build a composite for those dates as well so we can see what sort of pattern with a -NAO might not produce winter weather.  

But keep in mind some of those are very good years, we just missed by chance.  '62 is the benchmark year for what a -NAO can do.  We just missed by chance that year.  Pretty sure not all areas missed on snow, especially far eastern areas and NE TN during 62.  Interesting discussion for sure.  Again, thanks a ton for everyone's hard work! 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

One last hurrah on this for a bit, unless asked for more.. I will be happy to do it for any all future months (with John's awesome help of course)!

Disclaimer out of the way, I went through the KU book at just put in dates for one week before every storm from the 20th century that looked like it had a great track, or produced a lot of snow for most of the forum area. I mostly aimed for Miller As, since, for me anyway in Knoxville (1996 was good in Kingsport when I lived there though), Miller Bs have been awful. (Jan. 2016 was rough for me in Knoxville, though I watched it with y'all). 

There was one year that had a storm with an awesome track that their book showed as rain, but I left it in since the track was great and may have produced a different result given different boundary layer conditions. I also put in Jan. 1996, since it was epic for some of us. I couldn't add in anything after 2012, because of the data restrictions on the site, so I couldn't add my two favorite Knoxville storm years, Feb. 2014 and 2015. Without further ado, 500 mb anomalies in North America one week before some of our best storms: 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Dates used for the above composite:

2-9-58  

1-1-96  

3-5-93  

1-22-66

12-17-66

12-19-69

1-14-78

1-12-79

1-14-87

2-06-60

12-26-86

12-16-63

12-25-70

1-1-88

1-25-96

12-10-73

1-6-78

[nrgjeff]

Holston may be onto something with -1 NAO if it's coming out of a deeper NAO. We like to talk transition storms. Regrettably I cannot look into it more now. Bottom line, I think everyone is making good points. Nice! 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Seeing the link Carvers Gap posted in the speculation thread, made me remember a storm I was always curious about. I was in Kingsport at DB at the time and remember a what was probably a weird upper low that just spun over East TN. I remember the radar showing snow everywhere but Kingsport and the analogue of 3/26/99 seems to fit that bill. I wasn't into weather as much at the time, but enough to notice the weirdness of it.  Any one have any memories of that one? 

[John1122]

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. 

[Carvers Gap]

I lived on Papermill at the time.  Definitely true that they got much less than surrounding areas.  Seems like we got 4-6" there with lots of ice.  I drove home to Kingsport that weekend and was shocked at how much snow other areas had received.  Snow from two storms was now piled in parking lots.  

Great write-up John...and that is the data that was missing from MRX I think.  Is it back now or did you have to use media reports?

[John1122]

3 hours ago, Carvers Gap said:

I lived on Papermill at the time.  Definitely true that they got much less than surrounding areas.  Seems like we got 4-6" there with lots of ice.  I drove home to Kingsport that weekend and was shocked at how much snow other areas had received.  Snow from two storms was now piled in parking lots.  

Great write-up John...and that is the data that was missing from MRX I think.  Is it back now or did you have to use media reports?

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. 

[Daniel Boone]

20 hours ago, John1122 said:

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 Tennesee.  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 bizzard of 1993, plus a massive ice event for west and SW valley areas. 

I lived and worked in Pennington gap in Lee County at the time and remember this well. I also recorded the event in my daily weather log.

      My records from then were unfortunately lost during relocation. However, memory serves me quite well.

 Snow began in Pennington around 8:30 p.m. and quickly became heavy. By 6:30 the next morning there was 6 inches with just a few flakes falling. I worked for the city at the time and was outside throughout the day and only observed a few light flurries and can recall reports of heavy snow just to our south in Rogersville. 

   Snow began falling moderate to heavy just after 4 p.m. and lasted untill 9 or so with an additional 4 inches falling for a total of 10".

   The morning low there the 5th was -21 with the official afternoon high of 4 below. This was recorded at the radio station there as well as my home in Pennington gap. A report of -30 (via, WCYB) from the Rose hill area in western Lee County. 

    The Jan 21 1985 outbreak was about the same with -24 Low, -4 High with snow depth of 7".

[John1122]

Rogersville reported 17 inches from the storm. So the reports you heard were accurate about heavy snow there. 

[John1122]

After trying to figure how TYS recorded only 8 inches of snow for the February 1st-2nd 1996 event, I went and looked at the hourly data from Feb 1st and 2nd of that year. I recall the snow starting in Knoxville before it did here as it worked it's way South to North, and it had started here by 7-8 pm. Looking back at old news footage at the time, Knox was reporting snow by 8-9 pm as well. This was a cold event with temps in the upper teens to mid 20s in the area. Snow fell in Knox as the temp dropped quickly from 28 at the start to 19. This should have produced higher ratio snows, and that is reflected in observations that are harder to find than the normal big 3 reporting stations you'll find looking at MRX data, which are Tri/Chatt/Tys.

On the hourly reports at Knox from Feb 1st freezing precip starts in the form of freezing rain/fog  with 10.5 mile vis, and .02 inches of precip fall as freezing rain. The reports then indicated only fog in Knox, but .12 precip falls, then another period with .12 precip falls, this time the temp is in the 20s and the visibility has fallen to 1 mile at observation time. None of this is recorded as snow. Official data says snowfall 0.00, precip .26. I'm 99.9 percent sure that both periods of .12 were in the form of snow. From midnight to 1am on the 2nd, Knoxville records another .12 precip, once again it's labeled as fog. with a visibility of 1 mile. So .36 has fallen at this point, with 0.00 listed as anything but fog. The next observation says snow .13, followed by snow .15. The snow continues with the aforementioned temps falling into the 10s and finally an observed precip amount of .86 falling as snow. The official snowfall is claimed to be 8 inches from that .86, which I think is absolutely wrong based on QPF, temp profiles and observations all around the site. Knoxville had 1.37 fall as frozen but has missing data listed for snowfall and snow depth for the 1st.  I figure the .86 with a lot of it falling at temps below 25 would be close to 10 inches on it's own. I'd guess Tys probably actually had 12+ inches of snow like every other station in it's immediate vicinity. But as Carvers mentioned, it's the year of inexplicably missing snowfall data at the big 3 reporting sites from that time frame.

[Carvers Gap]

@John1122 @tnweathernut Seems like we are missing some big storms in there, particularly the JC snow during the lat 90s.  I do realize that these are for the airport stations.  But have to think the big JC storm needs a mention.  Does this look correct to you all?  Also, seems like the Feb '96 storm is missing?

https://www.weather.gov/mrx/snow

 

[John1122]

52 minutes ago, Carvers Gap said:

@John1122 @tnweathernut Seems like we are missing some big storms in there, particularly the JC snow during the lat 90s.  I do realize that these are for the airport stations.  But have to think the big JC storm needs a mention.  Does this look correct to you all?  Also, seems like the Feb '96 storm is missing?

https://www.weather.gov/mrx/snow

 

It's not right and the maps that accompany them are honestly laughable. As I mentioned, Tri airport goes from 0 snow depth to 13 inches depth on February 2nd-3rd 1996 but has M for snowfall so they don't include it. February 1998, no clue how they missed it. I don't remember it happening how its recorded at Tri, but amounts between 3.4-5.7 inches are recorded over a 4 day span, with something like 18.2 inches falling. But I guess they aren't counting it as one event? No idea honestly.  I thought it was a dynamic cooling event that all fell in a shorter time. The Plateau had one a week later with 10-25 inches. 

[tnweathernut]

1 hour ago, Carvers Gap said:

@John1122 @tnweathernut Seems like we are missing some big storms in there, particularly the JC snow during the lat 90s.  I do realize that these are for the airport stations.  But have to think the big JC storm needs a mention.  Does this look correct to you all?  Also, seems like the Feb '96 storm is missing?

https://www.weather.gov/mrx/snow

 

Guessing the 1998 storm didn't make the list due to a lighter accumulation at the airport.  We had over 20 inches at my place in JC.  I noticed an article from Bristol where they recorded 8".  The only two options are the airport didn't record enough to qualify for their list or the snowfall wasn't properly recorded.  Since I know that has been an issue in the past it wouldn't surprise me if the latter is the best option.

[tnweathernut]

2 minutes ago, John1122 said:

It's not right and the maps that accompany them are honestly laughable. As I mentioned, Tri airport goes from 0 snow depth to 13 inches depth on February 2nd-3rd 1996 but has M for snowfall so they don't include it. February 1998, no clue how they missed it. I don't remember it happening how its recorded at Tri, but amounts between 3.4-5.7 inches are recorded over a 4 day span, with something like 18.2 inches falling. But I guess they aren't counting it as one event? No idea honestly.  I thought it was a dynamic cooling event that all fell in a shorter time. The Plateau had one a week later with 10-25 inches. 

It absolutely was.  We saw 2-3" rates for 7+ hours.   The forecast that day was laughable as the event unfolded.  Looks like the recorded history of the event is also laughable.

[John1122]

Just now, tnweathernut said:

It absolutely was.  We saw 2-3" rates for 7+ hours.   The forecast that day was laughable as the event unfolded.  Looks like the recorded history of the event is also laughable.

Yes, that's what happened here a week later. Power line snapping cement with 2 inch per hour rates for 8+ hours. 

They literally record 3 to 5 inches for 4 straight days at Tri on the official record. That's a big part of why the extremely low snowfall averages are off in our region. Extremely poor quality control. You can't have a remotely accurate 30 year average when you're missing the biggest events of the timeframe. After looking it adds up to 17.6 falling at Tri airport. 

[Holston_River_Rambler]

Here's the 500 mb pattern for that Ice Storm in Jan 1951, from NCEP reanalysis:

[John1122]

40 years ago yesterday and today we had 6 inches of snow and the coldest March day on record. High of 20 with a low of -11. Oneida and Tazewell were virtually the same.

Widespread 2-4 inches of snow along 40 across the state but the Northern Plateau was particularly cold, even compared to Crossville who was -2. 

Notable snow/lows.

Gatlinburg 6 inches, -6

Tri 4 inches, -2

Newport 2 inches, -4

Knoxville 4 inches, 1

Lenoir City 4 inches, 1

Greenville 3 inches, -6

Wise 5 inches, -5

Tazewell 6 inches, -10

Lafollette 6 inches, -10

Oneida 6 inches, -11

Crossville 3 inches, -2

Cookeville 4 inches. -1

Nashville 3 inches, 1.

Murfreesboro 2.5 inches, 1

Jamestown 5.5 inches, -10

Clarksville 3 inches, 0

Memphis 1 inch, 17

Jackson 2.5 inches, 9

Paris 3 inches, 3

London, Ky 6 inches, -12

Williamsburg, Ky 6 inches, -8

Middlesboro, Ky 5.5 inches, -9

Abingdon, Va 5 inches, -6