Middle Tennessee Weather News

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First it was soaking wet. Then the sky went dry. Such was the summer of 2002 in Middle Tennessee. Between June 30 and July 13, Nashville measured 7.30" of precipitation -- the wettest June 30 through July 13 period on record in Nashville. On June 30, the airport recorded 2.30" of rainfall, which set a new record for that date. Twelve days later, this feat was repeated, as a 2.54" downpour established a new mark for July 12. For the month, the city totaled 5.64" of precipitation, which was 1.87" (50%) above normal. By contrast, August began with 13 consecutive days without measureable rainfall, the longest dry start to the month of August in Nashville since 1918.

Other Middle Tennessee residents were not as lucky during July as Nashvillians. On August 14, the National Weather Service issued a statement on the drought along the Cumberland Plateau. At that time, the plateau was experiencing a moderate drought. While the higher elevated plateau normally receives the most rainfall in Middle Tennessee, the opposite was true this July. Some precipitation totals from that month include 2.99 inches at Monterey, 2.81 inches at Byrdstown, 2.60 inches at Coalmont, and 2.16 inches at Winchester. Normal rainfall for July in these areas is around five inches. The drought was further exacerbated by the unusually long dry start to the month of August.

However, by the middle of the month, a return to warm, humid air and the passage of a couple of weak fronts brought much-needed rainfall to the mid state, allowing most areas to catch up to some extent on the rainfall defecit.

While on the topic of droughts, the National Weather Service will begin issuing a new DROUGHT PRODUCT whenever drought conditions exist. This product will consolidate drought information from various sources and assess local conditions to provide the public, media, and local agencies with the latest information on local conditions. Middle Tennessee will be divided into two geographic areas for the purpose of the drought product. One area will extend from the Tennessee River east to the Cumberland Plateau. The second area will include all of the Cumberland Plateau.

The National Weather Service's StormReady Team visited Cookville/Putnam County for a Storm Qualification Check on August 5, 2002, and Fayettyville/Lincoln County on August 16, 2002. The team has forwarded its recommendation for StormReady recognition at both locations.

Americans live in the most severe weather-prone country on Earth. Each year, Americans cope with an average of 10,000 thunderstorms, 2,500 floods, 1,000 tornadoes, as well as an average of 6 deadly hurricanes. Potentially deadly weather impacts every American. Communities can now rely on the National Weather Service’s StormReady program to help them guard against the ravages of Mother Nature.

Some 90% of all presidentially declared disasters are weather related, leading to around 500 deaths per year and nearly $14 billion in damage. StormReady helps arm America's communities with the communication and safety skills needed to save lives and property– before and during the event. StormReady helps community leaders and emergency managers strengthen local safety programs.

StormReady communities are better prepared to save lives from the onslaught of severe weather through better planning, education, and awareness. No community is storm proof, but StormReady can help communities save lives.

April 16, 1998 is a day many of us in Nashville and across middle Tennessee will never forget. It was an easy forecast: We were in big trouble and knew it!

In anticipation of dangerous storms, my family and I stayed at my parent's house the night before because our home is surrounded by large trees and big gullies. I knew I might need to make a quick exit to get to work and on-the-air to give weather updates; and I didn't want to look out the window and realize I needed a chainsaw to cut my way out of the driveway.

I remember my Mother frantically waking me in the early morning and saying, " Lisa, there's a tornado near Hickory Hollow Mall." I replied, "Mom, I get my own tornadoes this afternoon. I need to sleep a little longer so I'll be ready!"

I went to work in the late morning and we had a few warnings here and there but a little lull in the action. And then the weather cranked to the next level…a tornado on the ground in Dickson County and headed east, straight for Nashville.

Storm tracking on live television is cumbersome at best. You are working high tech multi-function computers, while analyzing the storms, while being handed damage reports, while ripping storm warnings from the National Weather Service off the wire, while trying to deliver useful information to the public. And, then, I catch a glimpse of our News 2 City Cam (a camera atop the Sun Trust Bank building downtown) and see it...a swirl of wind carrying debris in a circular motion.

Adrenaline was screaming through my veins but I knew I had to focus on the task of tracking this tornado and give people a chance to take cover. At WKRN our on-air news and weather set is actually in the newsroom. Chaos was all around. I could hear talk (okay, screams) of a building collapse, windows out, people trapped. Let's just say the pressure was building.

About this time more storms popped and it seemed they all showed the classic signs of rotating. It meant focusing on multiple areas in immediate danger and warning those in the paths of all the storms in our viewing area.

Then it dawned on me...the storm that had caused such tremendous damage in Nashville was making its way down Highway 70 into Wilson County. My home is about a quarter mile south of Highway 70 in Wilson County and my husband and two young daughters were there. I was still hearing one damage report after another. We don't have a basement. I was on-the-air continuously. Phone lines were down. I slid my home number to someone with a note asking him to call until he got through. I needed to know if they were okay. At that point, I said a short prayer for my family's safety and strength to focus on my job so that other families could be safe.

I thought it would never end. I could have slept for three days, but I couldn't sleep. My family was fine. The damage line was only a few hundred yards from us, but we had none. My husband later told me the girls were in the closet having bologna sandwiches while he stood on the front porch mesmerized by the green sky and swirling clouds. I, of course, explained that is NOT what the weather woman on TV said to do!

The magnitude of the situation hit home when I joined a group from News 2 to help clean up a street in East Nashville a couple of days later.

Nashville has recovered but the impact is still felt today. We all have a new respect for severe weather and hope a day like April 16, 1998 is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

SimuAwips, Middle Tennessee Skywarn Homepage's Online Weather Center, became an idea on December 16, 2000 during a tornado outbreak across Northern Alabama and Southern Middle Tennessee. During this event, the idea of having an organized real-time online weather center with the fastest weather warnings and weather images possible became necessary for not only emergency managers and persons calling ham radio nets, but for the safety and protection of the general public as well. So after much planning and work, SimuAwips was introduced to the world, just in time for severe weather season, on March 1, 2001.

SimuAwips has a variety of weather products available to the world, but geared to serve the Middle Tennessee area. Some of these products range from real-time radar data, hazardous weather outlooks, to real-time weather warnings, and much more coming from the National Weather Service Office in Nashville, via EMWIN. All text products are made available the second they are sent out, and automated icons and voices indicate what product has been issued. SimuAwips has been quoted by several people as "the fastest way to obtain weather warnings via the Internet."

Although the outreach schedule slowed this summer, we still visited a number of cities across the mid state. Specifically, members of the Outreach Team made appearances in Winchester, Byrdstown, Sparta, Nashville, Lawrenceburg, Manchester, Dover, Cookeville, and Lynchburg.

Since October 1, 2001, the members of the Outreach Team have made 68 appearances in 37 of the 42 counties in the Old Hickory office's county warning area, and have "reached out" personally to 4,366 individuals. (The goal is to visit every county by September 30.) Meanwhile, during the upcoming months, the Outreach Team has speaking engagements slated in Livingston, Lebanon, Nashville, and Hohenwald.

The team gives presentations depending on the audience or topic. There is a standard slideshow it delivers to schools, and another used for civics groups. Other topics include, but are not limited to, agricultural weather, aviation weather, flooding, historical weather, lightning safety, tornado safety, and winter weather.

The Outreach Team's goals for FY2003, beginning October 1, include:

• Targeting more recreation groups, such as boating clubs and golf leagues.
• Visiting a total of 50 different cities/towns, including at least 15 we didn’t go to in FY2002.
• Providing school presentations for mainly middle- and high-school students. Including information about various careers in meteorology and the relationship weather has with other career fields. Making the school presentations more interactive.
• Developing several “hands on” presentations and activities for younger students including weather instruments and experiments showing basic principles of meteorology.

Also, the Outreach Team's Mission Statement for the following year is "to meet as many of our users as possible and to promote the National Weather Service. The Outreach Team will accomplish this by scheduling appearances at various meetings and special events across our entire county warning area. We will explain who we are, what we do, and how the public can use our products. In doing this, we will also promote the use of NOAA Weather Radio and our website."

The photograph of the quarter for this issue was taken by Sharon Prince, who sent us a digital picture from Huntland, in southwest Franklin County, near the Alabama state line. This photograph was made during a solar eclipse. Sharon wrote, "You can barely make out the top side to the north (upper right) on the sun as the eclipse started. I had hoped for a pretty colorful glow on the clouds after sun set but too much light was taken up. Did notice about 15 minutes before that there were sun dogs giving a colorful glow to the south side of the sun."

In addition, National Weather Service meteorologist Bobby Boyd has offered a couple of remarkable photographs of weather balloon launches at the Old Hickory office. The first photograph shows a weather balloon immediately after being "let go." The structure shown in this first photograph is the inflation building, where the hydrogen cannisters are stored, and where the balloons are inflated and kept until release time.

The second photograph shows the weather balloon in flight. Hanging just below the balloon are the parachute, and at the end of the 120-foot string is the radiosonde -- the instrument which measures atmospheric elements (temperature and relative humidity) during its ascent. The balloons typically rise above 100,000 feet (~18 miles) during their 2-hour flight. Balloons are launched twice every day, at 6:00 a.m. & 6:00 p.m. CDT.

Not to be outdone, this recently discovered black-and-white image takes us back to May 21, 1947. This is the Communucations Office when the Weather Bureau was located at Berry Field. The Weather Bureau opened its Airport Station at Berry Field on June 25, 1937, where it would remain until June 23, 1975 when the re-named National Weather Service moved to the Metropolitan Airport (now known as the Nashville International Airport).