SNAKENADO

 Poisonous Snakes. Tornadoes.
These are the two things that concerned me the most  in moving to the South.
In the early weeks, I was pretty paranoid working in the yard, worried there were legions of deadly snakes lurking in every pile of leaves I encountered.
We have been here a few months now, and I haven't seen a single snake. Until now.  I had become rather complacent in working in the yard, weeding, trimming plants and tidying up.

Last week, we had new friends from Lampo over for a BBQ-- I was sitting outside and realized something smelled really bad. First thing I thought of was that the garbage can was open-- it has been warm ( mid to high 80's)  lately, and having the can open could possibly be the issue. It was closed. There was some picnic garbage nearby, which I took care of, and it seemed to be better.
Fast forward about an hour, and while some of us were chatting in the house, Dylan and a friend burst through the door screaming "THERE'S A DEAD SNAKE IN THE BUSHES!" Now, anyone that knows this girl knows that she does tend to step over the 'drama' line just a teensy bit... We kind of poo poo-ed it, but when we went outside, we found this--- a FIVE FOOT LONG DEAD COPPERHEAD SNAKE, that stunk to high heaven.

The next day, while the kids were playing, they watched a man run over a 5 ft long  rat snake with his truck, on our street. It didn't kill it, so it was dispatched with a shovel in the neighbors yard, bagged and chucked in the garbage. We own 2 snakes, so this was disturbing to us. It wasn't poisonous ( like the copperhead) but we are learning that folks in South don't take chances, and it is better to be safe than sorry. We still feel sad, but I am sure with time we will get over it. Last week, a  friend caught a snake eating a bird in their yard, someone else had a snake stuck in their garden netting, and we have seen lots of dead ones on the roads. Apparently it is snake season here in Middle Tennessee.

A few weeks ago, there was some severe weather going through our area. I joined twitter so that I could follow this guy-- @nashseverewx, he also has a website. (www.nashseverewx.com) He lives about a mile away and is an amateur meteorologist, and along with some meteorologist interns do a really good job of tweeting the weather-- down to the neighborhood.
I was a nervous wreck watching the forecast which called for possible Tornadoes, golf ball sized hail, winds, and buckets, no GALLONS of rain.  We didn't get any tornadoes ( Pray for OK, AR, and MS  who are still recovering.) We did get 3 inches of rain in about 2 hours. It. Was. Crazy.  WA rain has nothing on 'Southern Rain'.

People in this area are pretty nonchalant when it comes to the 'severe weather'. Right now we are on 'watch' for severe weather potential tonight/early in the AM. It is likened to storm lottery-- if it happens to land on you, bad, but who knows where it will land. We have had "watches" in the past and had the sun shine all day with nary a cloud in the sky. Today is set to be 90 degrees, with a heat index of 93, but no rain until late tonight.  "Watch" means it may or may not happen.. and "warning"  means it is imminent, or likely to happen and you need to take cover.

The Nashville area sits in a bowl in the middle north of the state. Tennessee is  divided into three regions- West, Middle and East. We live in Middle Tennessee. Tennessee has 95 (!) counties. The weather reports will call watches and warnings by county as storms move through. We live in the CITY of Franklin, but the COUNTY of Williamson.

 this is from www.tnhistoryforkids.com

Here, where Rutherford County meets Coffee County, the Central Basin begins to climb into the Highland Rim.

* Highland Rim and Central Basin.

Middle Tennessee is divided into two regions. The outer ring of Middle Tennessee is called the Highland Rim. It is dominated by rolling hills and valleys. Some of the hills are gradual, while some are quite steep.

The Central Basin is lower than and completely surrounded by the Highland Rim. You might think of the Central Basin as a bowl, surrounded by the Highland Rim.

In this era of the interstate superhighway, it can be hard to distinguish between the Central Basin and the Highland Rim. But it you look for it, you'll notice the change. The next time you ride southeast on Interstate 24 (from Nashville to Chattanooga), notice how flat it is in Rutherford County. But when you get to Coffee County you go slightly uphill for a few miles. That, you see, is where the Central Basin becomes the Highland Rim.

If you look up the elevations of cities that are in the Central Basin and those that are in the Highland Rim, you will notice a slight difference. Nashville (600 feet), Franklin (650 feet) and Murfreesboro (620 feet) are in the Central Basin. Lawrenceburg (900 feet), Manchester (1,060 feet) and Cookeville (1,140 feet) are in the Highland Rim.

West Tennessee's proximity to  the Gulf Coastal States, makes it more susceptible to remnants of tropical storms and hurricanes which collide with the colder air from the North, causing severe weather. Our being in a 'bowl'  protects us somewhat from the more serious weather many times.

It doesn't mean that we wont see any severe weather or Tornadoes in Middle Tennessee, however this information hopefully will ease your minds...