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It's not about winning or losing, it's about observing the environment.
The plants in Tennessee have decided it's better for them to shed their leaves and go to sleep for a few months whereas plants in other parts of the world have decided it's worth staying awake. Ask yourself: why might the plants behave this way?
Poplar Creek (Tennessee)
Littlelago123, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Tennessee is on the northern boundary of humid subtropical under Trewartha, it's going to share characteristics with the midwestern humid continental climate, why don't you choose a core southeastern subtropical area, which would be most places in the south Atlantic coastal plain.
The only thing you'd argue against Augusta would be that it's filled with pines which are evergreen but some posters think conifers are cold adapted plants but you'd have exclude almost the entire southeast and even some of the Bahamas from subtropical. I hope you get the sense of how ridiculous that would be.
Raleigh has pretty similar weather to the tossup places like Atlanta but it's just that little bit colder that makes a difference on the margins and is enough for me to solidly call it not subtropical.
Compare 2020-2021 temps for Savannah (subtropical), Atlanta (borderline), Raleigh(not subtropical):
Now being only based on last year's numbers this is somewhat anecdotal. I will run the numbers on more years of data at some point, but Raleigh does have January mean lows below freezing, which is a terrible sign for it being subtropical. I want to say someplace with <10 nights below freezing (in addition to the other metrics, and in the specific context of these SE places) is a good threshold for true subtropical. 10-30 days being borderline, 30+ being not subtropical
Raleigh and Memphis are nearly identical, Raleigh is colder only by like a degree.
Yeah the winter lows (really the only thing I'm looking at) are around 2-3 degrees colder in Raleigh than Memphis. You have to draw the line somewhere, right? I would be fine saying noplace in TN is subtropical honestly. Memphis is a stretch to call it that.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Space_League
Yeah the winter lows (really the only thing I'm looking at) are around 2-3 degrees colder in Raleigh than Memphis. You have to draw the line somewhere, right? I would be fine saying noplace in TN is subtropical honestly. Memphis is a stretch to call it that.
Memphis misses my mark of 6°C by 0.4°C, with a January Mean of 5.6°C
Tennessee is on the northern boundary of humid subtropical under Trewartha, it's going to share characteristics with the midwestern humid continental climate, why don't you choose a core southeastern subtropical area, which would be most places in the south Atlantic coastal plain.
The reason I did not choose a "core" subtropical area is because I never disputed that places from Savannah on south are subtropical: they clearly are. This is Savannah in January. Wright Square Savannah 2021
Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Quote:
Originally Posted by Emman85
The only thing you'd argue against Augusta would be that it's filled with pines which are evergreen but some posters think conifers are cold adapted plants but you'd have exclude almost the entire southeast and even some of the Bahamas from subtropical. I hope you get the sense of how ridiculous that would be.
The reason I did not choose a "core" subtropical area is because I never disputed that places from Savannah on south are subtropical: they clearly are. This is Savannah in January.
Wright Square Savannah 2021
Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
What I'd argue against Augusta has nothing to do with the pines.
Yeah the winter lows (really the only thing I'm looking at) are around 2-3 degrees colder in Raleigh than Memphis. You have to draw the line somewhere, right? I would be fine saying noplace in TN is subtropical honestly. Memphis is a stretch to call it that.
Agreed.
Knowing that it's a continuum it makes sense to draw the line where the gradient from continental to subtropical is steepest. This seems to be somewhere around coldest-month mean temperatures in the 6-10 °C range. I would favour the higher end of this range but could be convinced otherwise.
Somebody is always going to feel short-changed when their hometown misses out on the subtropical paradise label but that's not new. I've been here for 10 years and this kind of thing was already old by the time I joined. First it was wavehunter, then Junter, now there's a whole new generation. Love it.
According to this Wikipedia article, 6 C is approximately the line demarcating year-round photosynthesis which makes sense because that is the temperature threshold for plant growth where I live.
Map shows where (20 years ago) the 6 C line was.
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, I can do that too, winter pic of Aiken which is slighter colder than Augusta. I think the Aiken pic looks better too.
