Chapter 1 Climate and Weather
1.1 Weather
Many guides describe the Tennessee weather in a way like the following:
In East Tennessee, there are four seasons of weather, including a hot, humid summer, and a cold winter, with temperatures regularly dipping below freezing. Spring and fall bring mild weather, with a lot of variation, especially around the shoulder months of March-April and October-November.
This is mostly true, but it fails to capture what it’s like to live in this area. We moved from Michigan—and Michigan is certainly a place in which there are four seasons. Indeed, it sometimes feels like the winter is the longest season in Michigan. That’s not the case in Tennessee as the balance between the seasons is different and this has profound impacts.
We’ll try to summarize the experience of each of the seasons in East Tennessee and how the progression of a typical year may unfold.