On December 31, 2023, Farm Bureau member Tommy Davis will reach an impressive milestone – 50 years of keeping rainfall records at his residence in Lawrence County.
“The first year I kept rainfall data was really just to make a comparison with the rainfall received at the National Weather Service office in Nashville,” said Davis. “However, my interest in climatology increased, which led to me continuing to take rainfall observations for the past 50 years.
Of all the rainfall events he has recorded, Davis recalls the most memorable one being by far the catastrophic flooding on July 13, 1998 in Lawrenceburg. He recorded 10.16 inches of rainfall that day at his residence, and many areas of the county received far more than that.
As a part of his record keeping, Davis mails in his daily rainfall totals once a month to the meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Nashville and they post them online. He has also been a rainfall observer for the CoCoRaHS Network in Tennessee since May of 2007 shortly after the network’s inception in the Volunteer state.
CoCoRaHS stands for Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, and is essentially a network of volunteers working to measure and map precipitation. Each time it rains, hails or snows volunteers just like Davis across the country take measurements and report them. The precipitation reports are then recorded on their website. For those interested in learning more and to see the reports, visit cocorahs.org.
Along with recording rainfall, Davis also remembers a few notable severe weather events during his record keeping the past 50 years. Tornadoes are no stranger to Lawrence County, and there are two in particular Davis vividly remembers.
“The tornado in 1995 destroyed homes less than half a mile from my home,” Davis said. “And in 1998, an F5 monster tore through the landscape a couple miles North of me. I was truly blessed to escape these two horrific events.”
70-year-old Davis makes sure to note that roughly 70 inches of rainfall is the average yearly total at his location. Davis says, “How’s that for a coincidence?”
Quite the coincidence to say the least, but an accurate number no doubt based off the meticulous recordings he has taking for the past five decades. And of course, Davis has no plans of stopping his record keeping anytime soon.
As for the future, Davis says, “I’ll be keeping up with the rain just as long as God grants me the health to do so.”