High Wind — Northwest Blount, Tennessee

2025-03-04 to 2025-03-05 · Northwest Blount, Tennessee

Event narrative

A several hour period of high wind gusts took place across the lower elevations of Blount County, with a peak wind gust shortly before 2 AM at a mesonet station in Walland of 70 mph. Additionally, at 12:18 AM LST, the McGhee Tyson ASOS station recorded a 59 mph non-thunderstorm wind gust.

Wider weather episode

A closed low moving into the Midwest helped intensify a very strong low level jet that brought high end mountain wave winds to the East Tennessee mountains and foothills, with strong non-thunderstorm wind gusts that were sub-warning criteria across much of the Tennessee Valley. An event of this magnitude is typically rare per each winter season. After the passage of the cold front, light snow showers brought light snow and limited impacts to higher elevations of the East Tennessee Mountains.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1244718. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.