possible retirement move to Knoxville area

[DaveinMtAiry]

Originally Posted by crlny12

I believe all the official NWS Morristown weather data for Knoxville are collected for McGhee Tyson Airport in Alcoa which is actually closer to Maryville.

Interesting, thanks. I did find an annual rainfall total for Maryville, 51". That's nearly 10" more than here in Maryland. That just can't be good news but not a deal breaker.

[onetoughkitty]

Originally Posted by DaveinMtAiry

Interesting, thanks. I did find an annual rainfall total for Maryville, 51". That's nearly 10" more than here in Maryland. That just can't be good news but not a deal breaker.

Dave, we can get a lot of rain in a short period of time. During the summer, we have very sunny mornings and a deluge of rain in the afternoon and then it is sunny and humid by 4 pm. We have a lot of days where we get rain and it's clear by the afternoon. Sometimes we get rain and it's sunny at the same time. LOL.

[DaveinMtAiry]

Originally Posted by onetoughkitty

Dave, we can get a lot of rain in a short period of time. During the summer, we have very sunny mornings and a deluge of rain in the afternoon and then it is sunny and humid by 4 pm. We have a lot of days where we get rain and it's clear by the afternoon. Sometimes we get rain and it's sunny at the same time. LOL.

BAM! This is exactly the information I was looking for. Thank you. Guess that just means I pack a poncho when I go fishing.

Are the storms forecasted so you can plan or do that kind of come out of nowhere?

[hiknapster]

I thought I was pretty clear with my experiences living in Mass., Florida and Knoxville. As others have said, it really depends. Further, in the Tri-Cities, it not all that typical to have every rainy day be a 30-minute rain shower like you get during the summer in Florida. Sometimes, as previously mentioned, a slow-moving front comes through and stays for a day or two. Same can be said for the Tri. What we get, they usually get a few hours later.

Truth is that Tennessee is often caught between many different weather systems due to where it sits. It can be really warm one day and really cold the next. This week we've had fluctuations in temperature of 25 degrees between one day to another. So trying to glean what Maryville is going to be like, or Knoxville or Oak Ridge is a fool's errand when you are simply looking at stats.

When I moved here, 12 years ago, we were in the middle of a drought. Then we weren't.

Last year, it was so dry that a major portion of the South was burning down. Radar was picking up the smoke and Gatlinburg was on fire. The story ended up in the New York Times.

This year there are islands in the middle of ponds that are below water. Just gone. It's been really wet.

Mark Twain once said about New England that if you don't like the weather you should wait a minute or so, to paraphrase. Apparently, he never visited East Tennessee.

Get it now?

[DaveinMtAiry]

Wow that was a bit aggressive. Everywhere I have lived has had that silly phrase "if you don't like the weather..." however it appears to apply more in your area. I guess I "get it", the weather is different from year to year. I don't know anywhere where this is not the case. I also "get" that 51" is a whole lot more than 42".

I never claimed every rainy day in Tri-Cities consisted of 30 minutes of rain. I was just relaying what I had been told and many days, particularly during the summer, fit this pattern and make the stats a bit deceiving. I was simply trying to learn if this was the case in Knoxville as well.

[crltn19]

Originally Posted by Team_WilsonAdam

One of my favorite things about Knoxville is that it remains light outside until nearly 10PM in the summers because we border the Eastern/Central time zone.

This is true and something to be aware of for people looking to move here, whether you are a lark or an owl, into late night social life, or have vision problems that might affect your nighttime driving.

At my zip code (37934), these are the sunrise/sunset time extremes:

Earliest sunrise (around Jun 13): 6:19 AM EDT
Latest sunrise (around Jan 7): 7:47 AM EST

Earliest sunset (around Dec 6): 5:22 PM EST
Latest sunset (around Jun 27): 8:57 PM EDT

Shortest day length (around Dec 21): 9 hours 43 minutes
Longest day length (around Jun 21): 14 hours 36 minutes

These are natural times based on Earth's tilt and movement. But if you take the effect of daylight saving time into consideration, the latest sunrise "on the clock" actually happens around this time of year, the day before we fall back on the first Sunday of November, which is at or shortly after 8 AM EDT.

The exact time varies by location but there should not be too much difference for areas around Knoxville.

[geranium]

"I was just relaying what I had been to...."

Dave, perhaps the point is that we're not relaying second-hand information.

[DaveinMtAiry]

And that is exactly why I asked here, I wanted to hear from the locals who live in this weather. Thanks to all who have helped, I think I understand better now.