Nice and quiet today, just the way we like it. Not so on this date in 1970: an F4 tornado moves across Montgomery, Robertson, and Sumner Counties. The storm begins 8 miles south of Clarksville, passes 2 miles south of Springfield, south of Fountainhead, and ends near Bethpage. Many homes and farm buildings are leveled between Springfield and Greenbrier. Another home is leveled near the end of the 42 mile path. Damage is estimated at $1.5 million. The tornado path is 400 yards wide. There are 3 fatalities, and 85 injuries. Courtesy of the Nashville National Weather Service.

Around 8:30 AM in between weather cut-ins on Good Morning America Storm Tracker showed some very light radar returns moving in from the north. After work this morning I made my way to Hartsville to talk to the 3rd and 4th graders at Trousdale County Elementary. Sure enough, I drove through flurries for a couple of minutes eastbound on I-40 between Mt. Juliet and Lebanon. Like most of the morning, we’ll enjoy sunshine the rest of the day. More on that flurry from the Nashville NWS:

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME SINCE 1989 THAT SNOW HAS BEEN OBSERVED ON THIS DATE IN THE NASHVILLE AREA. A TRACE OF SNOW ALSO FELL IN 1989. HOWEVER…ON THIS DATE IN 1988…1.6 INCHES OF SNOW FELL. THE AVERAGE DATE OF THE FIRST SNOWFALL…TRACE OR MORE…IN THE NASHVILLE AREA IS NOVEMBER 24TH. THE AVERAGE DATE OF THE FIRST HALF INCH OR MORE IS JANUARY 3RD. SNOWFALL RECORDS DATE BACK TO THE WINTER OF 1884 AND 1885…WHEN THE ARMY SIGNAL CORPS BEGAN KEEPING RECORDS IN NASHVILLE.

Cold weather has been the rule for most of the country this month. With a snow chance in Thursday’s forecast for parts of Middle Tennessee, it’s interesting to note where the ground is already white. The Rockies, Cascades and other mountains out west show up really well on the map of snow cover below. According to Birmingham’s ABC 33/40 Chief Meteorologist James Spann, 80% of the lower 48 was at or below freezing at 5am CST this morning.

Click here to open a larger version of the map.

Geoff Fox is the chief meteorologist at the ABC affiliate in New Haven, Connecticut. He also keeps a pretty active blog away from work. In light of our own late Fall fickle forecasts (my seventh grade English teacher would be proud of that alliteration) here are two snippets from his entry on getting the forecast “right”:

It would be so nice if this was an easy forecast. Of course it is not. Here’s the simple truth. No one cares about the difficulty of my job. All they care about is whether I get it right! That’s as it should be.

I don’t want to be wrong. It is painful to be wrong. After all these years of forecasting, it’s my greatest work related fear.

He’s right: as someone who has dreamt about completely missing the forecast (6″ surprise snowfalls in July are a relief to wake up from) I can tell you that most meteorologists take their work home. It’s a hobby, and luckily for me and others it’s also a j-o-b. In the long run, the easy forecasts outweigh the tough ones. Nothing is finer than waking up early to weather that’s cooperating with your forecast to a tee. That said, the tough forecasts don’t get any easier, even with time!

For the record, we mets do like w(h)ine with our cheese.

Check this site out…it’s pretty amazing. It’s a series of images, beginning with a view of the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of 10 million light years from the Earth (10^ 23 meters away). The images zoom into the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee at Florida State University. After that, it takes you from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally the subatomic universe of electrons and protons (10^ -16 meters). Cool stuff!

Thanks to local artist Ansley Black for the heads up.

Some Thanksgiving weather trivia for you, courtesy of the Nashville NWS:

THE FORECAST FOR THANKSGIVING DAY IS FOR PARTLY CLOUDY SKIES WITH TEMPERATURES RANGING FROM THE UPPER 40S ALONG THE PLATEAU…TO LOWER 50S ELSEWHERE. IT WILL BE BREEZY WITH NORTHWEST WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH.

LAST YEAR…THE HIGH ON THANKSGIVING DAY IN NASHVILLE WAS 48 DEGREES…AND THE LOW WAS 32 DEGREES. A TRACE OF RAIN FELL. THE LAST TIME SNOW FELL ON THANKSGIVING IN NASHVILLE WAS IN 1972 WHEN A TRACE OCCURRED. THE SNOWIEST THANKSGIVING IN NASHVILLE OCCURRED IN 1950 WHEN 2.0 INCHES FELL THANKSGIVING DAY…AND ANOTHER 7.2 INCHES FELL THE FOLLOWING DAY. 1950 IS ALSO THE LAST TIME MEASURABLE SNOW FELL ON THANKSGIVING IN NASHVILLE. MEASURABLE SNOW ALSO OCCURRED ON THANKSGIVING IN 1938 WHEN 1.5 INCHES FELL…AND IN 1936 WHEN 1.0 INCHES FELL.

THE WARMEST THANKSGIVING IN NASHVILLE WAS IN 1896 WHEN THE HIGH WAS 72 DEGREES AND THE LOW WAS 60 DEGREES. THE COLDEST THANKSGIVING IN NASHVILLE WAS IN 1930 WHEN THE HIGH WAS ONLY 32 DEGREES AND THE LOW WAS 18 DEGREES. THE WETTEST THANKSGIVING WAS IN 1925 WHEN 1.19 INCHES OF RAIN FELL. THE NORMAL HIGH TEMPERATURE FOR THANKSGIVING IS 56 DEGREES AND THE NORMAL LOW IS 37 DEGREES.

I’ve mentioned the upcoming winter weather here and here on the ol’ weather blog. The ABC affiliate down in Birmingham also blogs, and Chief Meteorologist James Spann has some well-written thoughts on the upcoming season posted this morning. Think snow!

Just in case anyone wakes up to the cold, looks at the colors on the radar, and thinks about snow…I point you to this old blog entry.

Early this morning Neil mentioned he saw a shooting star on his drive to work. He’s not alone. From NASA courtesy of www.spaceweather.com:

Every year in late October and early November, Earth passes through a river of space dust associated with Comet Encke. Tiny grains hit our atmosphere at 65,000 mph. At that speed, even a tiny smidgen of dust makes a vivid streak of light–a meteor–when it disintegrates. Because these meteors shoot out of the constellation Taurus, they’re called Taurids.

When should you look? You might see a fireball flitting across the sky any time Taurus is above the horizon. At this time of year, the Bull rises in the east at sunset. The odds of seeing a bright meteor improve as the constellation climbs higher. By midnight, Taurus is nearly overhead, so that is a particularly good time.

Here’s a map that points out the constellation Taurus to help find some of those “fireballs”.

I point you to this post from our friends at the Nashville National Weather Service:

Thirty-nine years ago on November 2, 1966, Middle Tennessee experienced a rare early-season snowstorm. Cookeville got buried under 15.2 inches of snow, with Allardt measuring 9½ inches, then Ashwood, 6, Carthage, 12, Columbia, 5½, Crossville Airport, 7, Crossville Experiment Station, 8, Dickson, 5½, Dover, 6, Fayetteville, 8, Franklin, 5½, Kingston Springs, 3, Lawrenceburg, 6, Lebanon, 7, Lewisburg, 11½, Linden, 4, Livingston 10½, Lynnville, 7, McMinnville, 7, Montegle, 10, Monterey, 10, Mt. Pleasant, 5, Murfreesboro, 9, Nashville, 7.2, Palmetto, 8½, Portland, 10, Pulaski, 6, Shelbyville, 7, Springfield, 6½, Tullahoma, 5.6, Waynesboro, 4.6, and Woodbury, 13 inches.

I’ll add: no chance of snow in the next couple of weeks, but you can believe I’ll be on the long-range lookout for our first chance of the white stuff!