Although Cumberland County saw its share of cold temps, snow and freezing rain, the county was spared from some of the crippling freezing rain Nashville, Davidson County and other Middle Tennessee experienced.
“As with every winter storm in our area, this one had its challenges. In the end, we had just about everything Ma Nature could throw at us, including snow, sleet, freezing rain, and plain rain,” said Cumberland County meteorologist Mark Baldwin.
“For the most part, damage from the ice was minimal, except in areas where the arctic air was slower to retreat, such as eastern and southern portions of Cumberland County,” he added. “That is where we had the most power outages and the most tree damage.”
There were numerous reports of limbs and trees downed in various areas throughout the county.
As of late Monday morning power outages were down to seven in Cumberland County, according to the Volunteer Energy outage map.
“Snow at the onset resulted in around half-inch of snow in Cumberland County, followed by ice amounts of around quarter-inch. Those amounts may have been a bit higher where the cold air hung around longer, those eastern areas.
“In this event warm air aloft resulted in higher elevations being warmer than lower elevations — typical ice storm scenario. The warm air aloft, just a couple thousand feet higher up, was as much as 15 degrees warmer than the air here at the surface. The freezing rain gradually changed to cold, plain rain Sunday morning, sparing our region the crippling ice storm experienced just to our west, in particular around the Nashville area,” Baldwin said.
Freezing drizzle and very light snow, along with a renewed push of arctic air Sunday night, ushered in the coldest temps of the season thus far.
Periodic snow showers continued Monday morning, lightly coating various areas of Cumberland County.
“The system produced liquid precipitation equivalent totals of wintry mix and plain rain of one to two inches across the county. This helped put a dent in the drought that so much of our area is experiencing. Now, we deal with arctic air for the next week that will bring a prolonged period of bitter cold temps,” Baldwin said.
He said the sharing of weather models over social media made the forecast difficult.
“The greatest challenge of all with this forecast was the rampant misuse of model data by the public, including the spreading of forecast misinformation via phone apps that often use raw model data with no human oversight to make forecasts. This information was spread on social media and caused lots of confusion. This also caused many to believe that we would receive outrageously high snowfall totals of as much as 2 feet of snow. While the data early in the week did support a large snowfall of several inches for our area, by Wednesday the guidance was showing a track of the storm system that favored a wintry mix for our area. The threat for an ice storm was even recognized. That change, albeit a few days out, also created challenges with communicating the forecast,” Baldwin said.
The weather outlook for the next couple of weeks favors below normal temps and below normal precipitation.
High temperatures are expected to be in the low 30s through Thursday with nighttime lows in middle teens.
Temps will rise later in the week into the upper 30s.