Snow panorama: Click here for a larger version of a snow-blanketed Coolidge Park
This week, most folks in Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia will trade their snow boots for sneakers. Parents will bundle their children back onto school buses. Grocery shelves will boast abundant bread and milk. And even in the mountains, cars will come unstuck from frozen driveways.
As locals finally dig out of last weekend’s snow, a question also surfaces: what is going on with this weather?
The Tennessee Valley has been the brunt of some particularly fickle weather this winter: the first white Christmas in 41 years, 60-degree temperatures on New Year’s weekend and, right after that, the biggest snowfall since the blizzard of ’93.
This fall, forecasters for WRCB-TV and the National Weather Service originally predicted a milder winter.
“It’s definitely been colder and wetter than we originally thought,” said WRCB-TV meteorologist Nick Austin.
December was the sixth-coldest in Chattanooga history. So far, January has been even colder.
WHAT’S NEXTAccording to the Old Farmer’s Almanac:”Winter will be colder than normal, with precipitation below normal in the north and above normal in the south. Most days in January will be cold, with other cold periods in early to mid-February. Snowfall will generally be above normal, with the snowiest periods in mid- and late January and mid-February.”
Still, Austin said the early prediction still holds true if warmer temperatures prevail through the rest of winter.
Chattanooga has gotten 11.4 inches of snow so far this winter. Monday’s snow total, 8.5 inches, outstripped the total for all of last winter — 7.1 inches between December 2009 and March 2010.
The effects of the snow dump are still hitting schools, businesses and local governments.
Hamilton County Schools has run out of snow days and must cut into planned professional development days or hold classes later in May.
The cost of clearing roads continues to mount. By Friday, the Tennessee Department of Transportation estimated it already had spent $1,398,450 on highway cleanup, spokeswoman Jennifer Flynn said.
The Georgia Department of Transportation was spending about $2 million a day on cleanup as of last week, a spokesman said.
Chattanooga spent more than $200,000 clearing roads as of Friday, spokesman Richard Beeland said.
And there’s much more to come, he said.
“The city’s going to see a lot more potholes and a lot more damage to the streets because of this much ice and this much snow that’s seeped down into the asphalt,” he said. He estimates total costs for storm repair could reach $1 million.
Chattanoogans were not the only ones stunned by the snow. Many animals at the Chattanooga Zoo had never seen anything like it, Executive Director Darde Long said.
“We opened the door for the chimps to go outdoors if they wanted,” Long said. “They went out and brought back big balls of snow. It was this big, grand fun.”
Staff writer Kelli Gauthier contributed to this story.