The Great I-40 Snow Drought

[Nashville_wx]

One thing that you guys can take a look at is the sun spot cycle and stat warming events. I do not have alot of time so if someone could post a wider range of data that would be great.

[dwagner88]

bravo! excellent post, makes me wish I had paid more attention in stats last semester!

ctbpharmd also brings up an excellent point about the effects the growing urban heat island of these cities has had on our snowfall recently:
 

Nice write up Mempho and welcome!

The last 20 years have been torture for me winter wx wise. I cannot believe that we are in such a statewide snow drought, but especially at KMEM. Howver, there have been several years where areas around, and I mean suburbs have recorded normal or even above average amounts vs KMEM(ie '96, '97, '02, '03, '06, and '08.) Even parts of the Metro recorded 6-8 inches from that freak storm in Feb '04. I know why KMEM is not an accurate recording station on radiational cooling nights, but why the heck for snow amounts.

Now for Nashville, go figure. It seems that awful "Warm-Nose" snow bust in '06 was just icing on the cake for the drought there. I will never figure that one out.

I have noticed exactly the same thing in Chattanooga, so I imagine the problem becomes much worse in larger cities like Memphis or more "sprawled" cities like Nashville. I did a report my freshman year about urban sprawl, and Nashville was at that time rated as the most sprawled city (per head) in the nation.

We know that the generally held belief is that temps have risen lately, but the location of the weather stations where the official temps are recorded are almost always at the local airport, a place full of tarmac and surrounded by more and more suburban homes and strip malls. I would be willing to bet that the warming trend is much less profound away from big city airports and other heat magnets.

So, if all this tarmac and development causes a slight rise in temps around the airport, I'm sure it has a similar effect on snowfall.

Just yesterday, areas all around Chattanooga (and NOT just higher elevations, valley locations like Cleveland as well) had snow on the ground (my house included). The only places that didn't see snow were in North Georgia (too warm) and the downtown area and northern valley areas around the river.

I'm sure that there is no way to do this accurately, but I would be willing to bet that if we had accurate data for the last 20-30 years for suburban locations of approximately the same elevation, the snowfall would be a bit higher. I'm not saying that these places have received normal snowfall, because it's pretty clear that hasn't happened lately, but I'm sure the difference would not be quite so drastic.

Our biggest problem with snowfall lately has been the complete lack of large-scale events (4 inch plus snows). They have been completely absent from the Chattanooga area for 13 years now, and the other major cities (Nash, Knox, and Mem) have seen very few events ( I try to forget when other cities get snow and I don't, so I don't know off the top of my head how many for Nashville and Memphis).


I'm not very familiar with historical weather events that occurred before 1988 (when I was born), but I do know that the time period from 1986-1993 provided above-normal snowfall for Chattanooga, and it wasn't just because of the '93 Superstorm. We had a 10 inch snowfall in January 1989, and the total snowfall from winter 86-87 was over 10 inches. You simply cannot get snowfall totals this high with the crappy backside moisture and clipper systems that have plagued the state for the last decade or so.

[kailynleto | Nightwolf]

The March of 08 event I just about thought they took a yard stick measured snow right off the landing tarmac. It seemed ridiculous until everyone realized BNA and East Nashville were just that unlucky. Ron reported less than the airport if I recall correctly. I live 7 miles WSW of BNA and roughly 150 higher in elevation and recorded just over 4" of snow.

I think the March snowstorm was a banding-type event.  Very long, finger-like areas of deep snowpack, and very long, finger-like areas of shallow snowpack.

[Nashville_wx]

Random thinking

[snowdog]

The sunspot thing has been interesting to follow this year.  I dont think there has been a sunspot in quite a while.  Nothing big thats for sure.  I think we have been sitting on or near zero for a good amount of time.  I think some are kind of astonished the next cycle hasnt kicked off yet. 

I dont think sunspots are the end all be all but I think they play a role.  There is also the whole 100,000 year ice age cycle, ellipitical orbit of the earth along with the eccentricity, etc.  Lots of factors that come into play. 

[Nashville_wx]

Bump!