Just How Weird Was Middle Tennessee's Weather Saturday Night?

NASHVILLE, TN — Saturday was one of the more bizarre weather days in the Nashville area in recent memory.

Strong and often gusty south winds drove temperatures into the 70s for much of the afternoon and evening, topping out at 73 degrees at 11:12 PM at Nashville International Airport. With the unusually warm temperatures came the threat of thunderstorms and tornadoes, which never materialized, though the Midstate was under a tornado watch for a large part of the day.

Rain began to fall in Nashville as a front pushed through the area just before 10 p.m. and behind that front: rain and a hard shift of the winds, turning 180 degrees and suddenly coming out of the north bringing frigid air and a rapid, dramatic drop in temperatures. The daily low for Saturday at the airport came just as Saturday became Sunday: 42 degrees at 11:59, a 31-degree drop in just 47 minutes. The mercury finally bottomed out at 26 degrees at 8:10 AM Sunday.

In less than nine hours, the temperature dropped 47 degrees, and the spring storms gave way to a light glaze of ice and snow that coated car roofs and other elevated surfaces Sunday.

As the storm pushed through, social media users noted how different temperatures were, even for people who lived just a few miles away from another.

In West Nashville, the temperature dropped from 73 to 65 in 25 minutes and then to 52 in the next 15 minutes, a 21-degree drop in 40 minutes.

Bellevue-area Metro Councilmember Dave Rosenberg kept a close eye on the temperatures across his district, posting a wild observation just after 11 p.m.

That's a 22-degree swing in a two mile drive.

Things will be a bit calmer as Sunday wears on. Temperatures should stay in the upper 20s and low 30s, dropping into the mid-teens overnight with a similar forecast for Monday before things warm up a bit midweek.

Image via Pixabay user somecomputer, used under Creative Commons