18 Years Since the '99 Tornado Outbreak

NOTE: This blog post is pertaining to the F4 tornado that hit Jackson, TN on January 17, 1999.

The day began not unlike many other mild January days that Jackson has become familiar with lately. The temperature was at 54°F at 7 a.m. that Sunday morning. A strong cold front was on the way keeping skies cloudy for most of the morning and afternoon. This satellite image was taken at 8:45 in the morning.



Temperatures warmed up to 63°F that afternoon right before the Tornado Warning was issued at 6:08 p.m. for Madison county.

It was a fast moving storm! In fact, the maximum wind gust reported at the McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport that day were clocked at 88 miles per hour.

Here's the damage survey report from the National Weather Service...

"The tornado developed 3 miles west of Bemis and tracked northeast across the southern part of the city of Jackson to 3 miles northwest of Beech Bluff. A shopping center suffered severe damage while a nearby funeral home was demolished except for the interior rooms. More than 200 homes were obliterated or heavily damaged while 300 other homes sustained lesser damage. The building housing the school buses for the county was destroyed and 55 school buses were damaged. A high-school baseball stadium was destroyed and the football stadium was damaged. 6 people were killed with 106 people being injured from the tornado. $10,000,000."

While this was well before my time in Jackson, TN I know many long-time residents of the Hub City remember that day 18 years ago very well and Jackson wasn't the only place to have a tornado that night. Parts of Crockett and Haywood counties were hit as well. What do you remember?

Finally Back Above Freezing!

NOTE: This blog post is pertaining to the below freezing temperatures we had from January 5th to 9th.

Temperatures in Jackson dropped to the freezing mark at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. Today we finally returned to a temperature above 32°F at 9:35 a.m. this morning!

That makes it 5,585 consecutive minutes since we were at or below freezing! (3 days, 21 hours, and 5 minutes)

The last time we had a temperature stay at or below 32°F for that long was from February 14th to 20th in 2015. It was much longer of course - a total of 8,807 consecutive minutes at or below freezing!

When we're below freezing for extended periods of time, we can sometimes have an unusual weather phenomenon called a "cryoseism", better known as a "frost quake", occur. This happens well-below freezing temperatures cause a freeze in water underground. When this water freezes it expands and sometimes cracks when stress in this ice builds up. Some people have likened the sound of this deep underground ice cracking to gunfire, so don't be alarmed if you hear it this week or the next time we have temperatures this cold.


Enjoy the warm up this week, and keep that umbrella handy for the rain tomorrow!

Snow Day 1/6/2017

NOTE: This blog post is pertaining to the snow that fell today, Friday, January 6th, 2017.

Well here we are Friday morning and many parts of West Tennessee are ending up with more snow than we had forecast this morning or last night! We'll probably end up with 2"-4" by 10am in parts of Jackson which is an inch or two more than the dusting to 2" we had forecast on Good Morning West Tennessee. Areas north of I-40 that were only expected to get a dusting are getting closer to an inch or more. That's also more than the National Weather Service or any TV outlet had forecast so we're all in the same boat. After all, we were all looking at the same data!

Let me explain...

West Tennessee usually has a liquid equivalent ratio of 1" of water equaling 10" of snow. Today, the drier air allowed that ratio to go to 1" of water equaling 15" of snow! That means if this were rain, we would have 0.15" of rain on the ground - not a lot. When the air get drier it becomes much more challenging to forecast snowfall accurately. Forecasting rainfall to the hundredth of an inch is virtually impossible.

I'm sorry if you were planning on sending the kids to school today and made a decision based on our forecast that didn't go well. Hopefully everyone can enjoy a three day weekend and stay inside today.

We'll have a full wrap up of today's snowfall totals coming up on WBBJ!