It’s amazing how the weather can turn on a dime! Last December and most of January we all were asking, “Where is winter?”

December’s average high was: 57.3 (7.9 degrees above normal).
January’s average high was: 50.3 (4.7 degrees above normal).

December’s mean temperature, averaging highs and lows was: 46.4 (5.9 degrees above normal).
January’s mean temperature, averaging highs and lows was: 41.7 (4.9 degrees above normal).

During the last ten days we have only gotten above 40 degrees three times. Today’s high will be the midnight temp of 54 degrees, but our afternoon highs will struggle through the low 30s.

To see the daily totals for any month CLICK HERE and follow these instructions:

1) Product: Pick “Preliminary Climatology Data (CF6).
2) Location: Pick Nashville, Clarksville, or Crossville.
3) Time Frame: “Most Recent” gives you this month, “Archived Data” gives you previous months/years.
4 View: Click for results.

There are lots of other interesting climate data for Nashville, as well as other towns. Click around and be amazed. Bookmark this page. Thanks to our National Weather Service in Nashville making this all available on line.

Brodie and Chloe Buckner in Mt. Juliet, TN on Old Hickory Lake

Cross Plains, TN in Robertson Co.

See more by clicking below:
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I just got in from playing with the melting snow with my daughter, and I would like to commend our friends at The National Weather Service. Yesterday afternoon, Bobby Boyd (a great forecaster and a great guy) with the NWS in Nashville predicted “up to an inch”. I thought we’d see flurries and light snow, but the dry air wouldn’t allow enough to come down to accumulate. Great job guys! Bobby has also always been very helpful in digging up lots of neat facts, figures, and statistics from the past and putting them out on their web site and the weather wires for all to see.

We’ve got more tricky forecasting for this week, and we’ll talk about that this afternoon. Happy Super Bowl!

Today’s forecast for Grand Forks, North Dakota: Partly cloudy and cold, with a high near -12. Wind chill values between -34 and -44. Northwest wind between 9 and 14 mph. (It was -24 at 5am.)

Current conditions in the Upper Midwest. The bold number to the upper left of the circle is the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. Wind chills will drop past 50 below zero in some areas today!

It’s easy to overlook the fact that this was (in many places) the coldest morning of the year. Here are some of the lowest temperatures I found on the hourly Tennessee temperature reports.

Dickson, Gallatin, Portland: 6
Cookeville, Lewisburg, Savannah: 7
Clarksville, Columbia, Crossville, McMinnville, Paris: 8
Fayetteville, Lawrenceburg, Lebanon, Murfreesboro, Winchester: 9
Camden, Shelbyville: 10
Smyrna, Tullahoma: 11
Nashville: 12

Temperatures are climbing quickly this morning - enjoy it while it lasts!

A few comments have asked why we’re out on a limb with all of the cold weather this week. James Spann and the alabamawx.com crew are going through a similar experience down in Birmingham.

The model output statistics are horrible, and you simply can’t trust them. I know many other sources are forecasting highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s for the next seven days, but I completely disagree, and don’t understand how anyone can come up with that conclusion. Remember, most of those folks were forecasting highs in the 50s tomorrow, just a few days ago. Walk outside tomorrow and see if you can find 50s anywhere. As I have said many times, I am here to tell you what I think will happen… I am not here to make any one group of people happy, and I am not here to agree with a forecast from anyone else.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has now upgraded the threat of a dam failure at Wolf Creek Dam in Russellville, KY as “high risk”. If a dam failure occurred there, flooding would occur all along the Cumberland River, including in Nashville. JOIN NEWS 2 AT 4, 5, 6, & 10 for stories on the latest.

To read my past blog on this as well as Center Hill Dam CLICK HERE.

To read today’s press release form the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, click below:
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If you read this post on Sunday you’ll be happy to hear the good news - James Spann won’t be gulping any bottles of mayonnaise this week.

Wonder where those hate mail guys are today… the ones who fired a rash of nasty e-mail messages back on Friday and Saturday when everyone from “The Weather Channel” to Country Boy Eddie and Sponge Bob were forecasting highs in the 50s and 60s today for Alabama.

This cold air is very shallow, and MOS (model output statistics) we all use on a daily basis becomes worthless. Never had a chance to reach the 40s this afternoon. No mayonnaise drinking going on here today, thankfully.

Can’t get too uppity here since we are in the midst of a very complex pattern for specific forecasts to be correct. The pattern is easy: cold and unsettled. Nailing down the day to day changes are very hard.

Forecasting from your gut and getting away from the general model guidance can be a lonely place. James Spann of www.alabamawx.com feels pretty confident that this week will be colder than the models, and his detractors, suggest…

If we have a high in the 60s on Tuesday, I will suck down a whole bottle of mayonnaise, something I have disliked since I was a young child. We will tape it and put it on the blog. For all the people who have sent in “hate mail” siding with “The Weather Channel’, if we are right and it turns sharply colder on Tuesday, you have to promise to quit sending nasty e-mail messages for a whole year. How is that for a deal?

A clear sky and light wind meant big-time morning chill. A roundup of area low temperatures:

Cookeville: 18
Savannah: 18
McMinnville: 19
Gallatin: 20
Lewisburg: 20
Murfreesboro: 21
Tullahoma: 21
Shelbyville: 21
Paris: 22
Lebanon: 23
Smyrna: 23
Livingston: 23
Portland: 23
Clarksville: 24
Crossville: 24
Dickson: 25
Nashville: 27
Camden: 28

Current conditions across Tennessee.