JIMBOB2's Blog

Hi,
Man, what a great question, one that I have pondered on myself. Yes, The mountains do play an important role in our weather durring certain patters. A few of our weather patterns are set up by the appalachain mountains. One of the greatest examples of this would be our classsic appalachian wedge, or "Cold Air Damming" This typically sets us up for more ice storms than anything else in the winter.. If you will notice next time this happens that typically on the western side of the mountains it is warmer, some times we can have an ice storm here, while on the other side of the mountains in TN, its in the 50's, and this is Due to the cold air damming up against the mountains on the eastern side.
Now for storm systems from the west... Sometimes yes, the appalachian mountains do break up storms that come in from the west. Many times they have been our saving grace when it comes to severe weather.
Warm wind: a west wind from the appl. mountains causes sinking and drying of the atmosphere, so that can in turn warm our temps up, esp. if we have a west wind in the piedmont.
Storms: sometimes we can get a trof, to form just east of the appll mountains. You will typically see this in late spring and into summer. So yes. to sum it up... our weather would be very diffrent without the mountains. Now as far as farming? im not sure about that?