The weather is a typical conversation starter people use as an icebreaker, but it is a question many Memphians can relate. Memphis is known as the “Bluff City” because it is on a bluff, but that does not cause some of the conflicting weather patterns this area experiences.
Ron Childers, the chief meteorologist at WMC Action News 5, said Memphis’ location on a bluff does not have that much effect on the weather. Severe weather is due to being in the Dixie Alley, the area in the United States that is more vulnerable to violent tornadoes.
“The bluff has as much of an impact on slowing down a storm as a bug hitting the windshield on your car does in slowing down your vehicle,” Childers said.
Last week started with colder weather — a high temperature of 59 degrees Fahrenheit and a low of 45 degrees on April 10. The next day was a mix of hot and cold with a high temperature of 70 degrees and a low of 40 degrees. The high temperature April 12 was 79 degrees, and the low temperature for the day was 54 degrees.
Childers said it can be difficult to predict the Memphis area weather due to our location and geography. Memphis receives not only a cold continental climate from the north but also a warmer tropical climate due to the shorter distance from the equator. Because of being between these different climates, the temperature can fluctuate drastically.
“Our environment gets a good mixing of that continental cold, dry air and some tropical warm, moist air,” Childers said. “That’s what makes weather here interesting.”
During the summer, weather in Memphis is typically hot, muggy and humid, and winter weather is generally very chilly, short and windy, according to statistics from NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office. The statistics show the yearly temperature in Memphis varies from 34 degrees to 94 degrees on average.
Childers said Memphis weather, as with any other city, is not unpredictable, as his job is to predict the weather.
“It’s not unpredictable, or I certainly wouldn’t have a job,” Childers said.
These weather patterns for Memphis are normal in general, but Dorian Burnette, an earth sciences professor at the University of Memphis, said it is hard to define what “normal” weather is. Burnette said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calculates normal weather in a given area by looking at a time span of the previous 30 years.
Burnette also said experiencing humid heat during the summer is normal for people in Memphis.
“We can sound like broken records in the summer,” Burnette said.
Burnette also said during the past few days, some areas of the country have been experiencing weather that is colder than usual for this time of year.
“There are cities that are having record lows of cold weather just these past few days,” Burnette said.
Memphis has had chilly upper 30-degree weather this past weekend, while states such as Iowa, Michigan, Maine and other northern areas are still seeing snow accumulation.
