"We don't have the scenic mountains like up in Tennessee or the white sandy beaches like the Gulf Coast. North Alabama still gets too cold (the Shoals DOES get snow and ice) for a successful retirement haven."
- DixieGalinSoCal, Posted 29 November 2006. 04:22 PM
For quite some time, I've posted statistics on the average temperatures, rainfall, snowfall, etc., for the Shoals. There have been a few times when frozen precipitation fell, and a few in which the same accumulated.
However, for the exceedingly vast part, neither snow nor extreme temperatures affect the Shoals.
Here is one of my original posts (from the old forum) about climatology in the Shoals. According to my records, it was reposted on or about September 2, 2006.
Here's the breakdown from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Weather Service - which has a weather forecasting, global hydrology and climate research facility in nearby Huntsville, on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus, in the NSSTC (National Space Science and Technology Center) Building.
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/
Normal high and low temperatures respectively for the Shoals in January range from 51 to 30. And this past December we - in the Shoals area - did not have any snow.
Most folk who live here already know that. But, of course, folk who live elsewhere don't know that, or haven't bothered to research the data.
But, (and that's a BIG but -insert laughter here-) I have!
For the years 1971-2000 the snow normals (again, according to the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Huntsville here's the url http://www.srh.noaa.gov/hun/climate/snowclimo.php) the snow normal for October is 0.00, for November is "Trace," and for December the average snowfall is 0.2 inch (that's TWO TENTHs of an inch), while the norm for January is 1.0, February has 0.9, March 0.3 and April "Trace."
Yep, that's a whopping snowfall, alright. Gitcher snomobiles out, bubba!
Now... if you wanna' look at the extremes, look at the url.