Another question about weather...sorry. (Kingsport: tornado, statistics, areas)

[ceylona]

I know there are various weather websites around that track the typical area weather for any given time, but I find actual testimonies to be much more fun and gratifying.

I'm curious about my husband's speculation that your area gets a lot more than the average amount of precipitation or dreary overcast skies, since that is his memory of Virginia.

Would you agree with this? Are there seasonal times of heavy cloudiness/precipitation? Do the mountains generate continuous cloudiness? Or are you bright and sunshiny and perfect year round as I'd love to think?

I'd love to hear any info about typical weather for each season. Any windy times of year? Thunderstorms you can set your clock by daily like the summers in Florida? Prone to any natural disasters (earthquake, tornados, rockslides, etc.)

Thanks in advance for your observations!

[jabogitlu]

East TN has many, many less tornadoes than mid and west TN. I'm not educated enough in weather patterns and the effects that geography has on them to determine if this is due to relative distance from "tornado alley" or if the mountains really do deflect these systems.

There generally is a lot of rain in the spring and summer months, but in my experience no more, on average, than anywhere else. Someone else who really digs statistics might be able to unearth something that says different, but... And in the hottest months, yeah, we usually have an afternoon thunderstorm around 4 at least 3-4 times a week.

This year, that's all gone to hell. Before the last 7 days or so, it hadn't rained enough to measure in months! Thankfully we've gotten a couple very good storm systems and the ground is actually -- gasp! -- wet!

[mbmouse]

I am no weather expert either and not into all the statistics on it but in my experience here in North Washington County (JC) there are not a lot of gray yucky days. And lots of times if one starts out that way, it changes to sunny before long. Now there are certain areas that seem to experience more fog than others. My folks are in Hawkins Co. by the river and they have fog just about every morning. The odd thing too is Kingsport and JC downtown as gotten rain the past few days, we are in between that and haven't gotten much of anything.
A lot of the "old timers" say if you don't like the East TN weather, stick around, it will change. I have noticed that weather systems don't seem to come in and hang around the mountains, they come in and go very quickly.