It is cloudy and frigid as I type these words. Several inches of snow linger atop my lawn. Shaded roadways remain treacherous. Because of early deadlines, however, it’ll be Feb. 15 before this dispatch about ice, snow and subfreezing temperatures appears in print. By then, I hope the weather in East Tennessee is unseasonably hot and the only panic-buying at local stores is for sunscreen, T-shirts and flip-flops. That being said:
Knoxville didn’t dodge the proverbial bullet when arctic air invaded the Southeast. It was more like lucking out of the path of an air-to-surface missile.
The “bomb cyclone” that slammed into our part of the state the weekend of Jan. 31-Feb. 1 was, by far, the lesser of two evils. All we got here was 5-6 inches of powdery snow, more in the Tri-Cities. From my observations, most folks seemed to enjoy it, albeit with seven words of caution glued to their lips: “As long as the power stays on.”…