Hurricanes, tornadoes and weahter questions (Kingsport, Blountville: school, college, live)

[familymom]

My husband is afraid of tornadoes and hurricanes. Do many come thru this way? Do you loose power often? Also how humid are your summers and how cold is it on the coldest day of winter? Would there be any chance of sleigh riding?

[jabogitlu]

No hurricanes here. We occasionally will get residuals which consist of a few days of rain and maybe some wind, 10-15 mph. Tornadoes are very rare in the Tri-Cities due to the influence upon weather patterns of our geography. There are a few each decade but they aren't the same kind of widespread-damage-inducing tornadoes that Kansas, et al. experience. They're more of a touch-and-run, short-lived kind of windstorm. However west TN and parts of middle TN do have severe tornadoes.

Summers are very humid, not like San Antonio or South Florida, but still quite hot. The difference between us and the deeper South is that our humidity and extremely hot temperatures don't last for very long in the day, and don't last for weeks on end. It gets pretty cold here in the winter. I would say that the high/low for the coldest day of the season is 35/15. Of course that varies, I can remember times when the high was 16 and the low was below zero. So it just depends.

[Beretta]

I agree with the previous post and there is very little chance of sleigh riding in this immediate area.

[mbmouse]

Yea, more like bump down a hill on a plastic disk one time as it wipes the snow off the grass.
After growing up in CT with all the snow I could possible play in, I feel like I am depriving my kids of the experience of more than 2 inches of snow at a time.
Although my hubby has pictures of about 2 feet in the yard in 96' so I am still holding out hope that it might happen before the boys go off to college.! hahahahaha

[jabogitlu]

Yeah, as a kid in the early '90s I can remember those nice snows. I want some real snow again!!!

[rccrain]

Anyone remember "the blizzard" in 1993? We were out of school for over a week. Used to, you could count on one good snow per winter. Not so much any more.

[Peach_Fla]

wonder if that guy is my nephew(now lives in Kingsport) I don't think you are gonna have many direct landfall hurricanes up there.............Ya need to come back to florida for that.......my advice...don't listen to the news!!!!!Works for me!!!!

[kamoshika]

Originally Posted by familymom

My husband is afraid of tornadoes and hurricanes. Do many come thru this way? Do you loose power often? Also how humid are your summers and how cold is it on the coldest day of winter? Would there be any chance of sleigh riding?

Power outages in the winter are most commonly caused by heavy ice, and it's a sporadic event that's never long-lived (almost always under 2 days). In any one location, that may happen every 8-10 years or so.

Over the past 3 winters, the lowest temp recorded at Tri-Cities Regional Airport near Blountville was 8 degrees (twice). On average, the airport has about 15-18 days a year where temps fall below 20.

Data on relative humidity:
National - Average Relative Humidity (http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/html/wx/climate/rh.html - broken link)

Do you mean sled rather than sleigh riding? If so, we definitely don't get as many sleddable snows as we used to. We're lucky now to get one a year. Some of the higher mountains near here, though, still get 6-8' of white stuff annually.

[jabogitlu]

I do think they're referring to sleds, a lot of people around here (and elsewhere, evidently!) call them sleighs.

I do remember the blizzard of '93. Many of the drifts came up over my head (of course, I was five then. )

[lakombert]

Well I'm definitely looking forward to getting away from the tons of snow we've been having in upstate NY! Last winter a community not far from us got 13 feet of snow in 6 days!! That's crazy!!!! With a Noreaster that blows in we can and do get hit with 5 feet of snow and many days of below zero freezing! Yuck!

~Laurie~