by Steve Norris, Smith County Insider Weather Correspondent
We need some rain in Smith County, but unfortunately I do not have much to tell you about. We have only had one day with showers in the last 2 weeks and unless something unexpected develops, we are only looking at a 20% chance for the first and middle part of next week.
Our forecast models are only indicating a slight chance through the end of September and combined with lower humidity and temperatures near 90 next week, I am getting concerned about the threat of grass and woods fires increasing. Smith County has issued a county-wide burn ban in hopes of preventing such fires.
If you would be interested in keeping a daily tab on your rainfall and reporting it to the Weather Service, go to Cocorahs.org to get all of the information on how to sign up. You only have to take one observation in the morning and then go online and put down the rainfall recorded during the past 24 hours. I am a daily contributor, and this weather info can be very valuable to the Weather Service and it is lots of fun to compare rainfall totals to the surrounding counties.
Autumn begins on September 23 at 2:50 a.m. and sunset that day will be at 6:36 p.m. The days are really getting shorter and by the end of October, sunset will be 5:46 p.m. On the first day of autumn, the sun will rise directly in the East and set directly in the West. As we go into fall and move toward winter, the days get shorter and the sun gets lower in the sky because the Earth is tilting away from the Sun.
In spring and summer, the pigment chlorophyll gives leaves their green color. At the end of summer, the decreased daylight and cooler temperatures cause chlorophyll to break down, and that exposes other pigments that cause the brilliant yellow, orange, red leaves of fall.
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Steve Norris got his first job at 18 years old doing radio weather. Steve does forecasts for several radio stations and newspapers, and he serves as a severe weather meteorologist for some city governments in the Middle Tennessee area. Steve first became interested in weather when his grandfather bought him a thermometer when he was 10 years old. He has been loving weather for over 40 years.
If you need weather data or have any weather-related questions or comments, you can reach Steve Norris anytime at weather1@charter.net.
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