Gallatin Storm, Climate and Tree Numbers, With Their Sources

Last reviewed 2026-07-25. Journalists, researchers, and community groups are welcome to cite any figure on this page with attribution and a link.

This page is the reference shelf for the rest of the site: the climate normals, storm records, ground conditions, line clearances and growth figures the Gallatin pages lean on, each with its source. The weather columns use NOAA's 1991-2020 normals for Nashville International Airport, station USW00013897, which has the complete normals set, and the storm table copies its dates, ratings and damage counts exactly as the National Weather Service office in Nashville reports them.

Below the weather sit the physical and human facts: how the land steps up from Old Hickory Lake to the Highland Rim, which soil series the USDA describes for the Basin and the Rim, how much clearance each electric provider keeps, and how many people have arrived since 2010. A source list with the exact values taken closes the page.

Month by month at Nashville International

The freezing-night column frames the dormant pruning season: January averages 19.7 such nights and March still 8.5, while the median last spring freeze falls on April 6 and one year in ten sees one after April 20. May is the wettest month at 5.50 inches and October the driest at 3.04. Heat stress concentrates in July and August, which together average more than 27 days at 90 F or hotter.

NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Nashville International Airport (USW00013897). Trace means a normal above zero that rounds to 0.0. The median growing season between the last and first 32 F nights is 211 days; the median first fall freeze is November 2.

Storms on the Sumner County record

The events below are the ones the National Weather Service office in Nashville documents for Sumner County and the surrounding metro. Ratings and damage counts are copied as the weather service gives them; the NOAA Storm Events Database could not be retrieved for this research, so it is not the source here.

Sources: NWS Nashville event pages for April 7, 2006, May 3, 2020 and December 9, 2023, and its calendar of significant Middle Tennessee weather.

Ground and elevation, from the lake to the Rim

A ridge divides Sumner County: Gallatin and Hendersonville sit on the slope that falls toward the Cumberland, while Portland, White House and Westmoreland are on the Rim lands to the north. The soil series listed are examples the USDA describes for the Nashville Basin and the Highland Rim; which one lies under a particular yard is a question for the county soil map.

Town elevations as listed in each town's encyclopedia entry, and lake levels from the Corps' shoreline plan documents of 2019 and 2020; soils from USDA NRCS official series descriptions and the NRCS page on Tennessee's state soil.

Line clearance by electric provider

Three providers serve Sumner County, and each publishes its own numbers. The one named on the bill decides who trims near which line. Under ANSI Z133, anyone without line-clearance training stays 10 feet from an energized conductor, tools included.

How fast Gallatin and its neighbors have grown

New streets bring buried service lines, sprinkler pipes and young trees, which is why growth figures belong on a tree data page. The census counts and the Census Bureau's July 2025 estimates:

Change runs from the April 1, 2020 estimates base to July 1, 2025, as QuickFacts reports it. Westmoreland's two counts are the decennial census figures as cited on the town's encyclopedia entry.

Sources & Methodology

Every figure above was taken from the primary sources below (accessed 2026-07-25). Where a number is derived (arithmetic on published figures) or covers a broader period or area, the text says so.

1. Annual/seasonal normals 1991-2020, NOAA NCEI, station USW00013897 (Nashville International Airport) — Values in tenths: ANN-PRCP-NORMAL 4725 (47.25 in), ANN-SNOW-NORMAL 63 (6.3 in), ANN-TMIN-AVGNDS-LSTH032 708 (70.8 nights), ANN-TMAX-AVGNDS-GRTH090 400 (40.0 days); PRBLST-T32FP50 04/06, PRBLST-T32FP10 04/20, PRBFST-T32FP50 11/02, PRBFST-T32FP10 10/19, PRBGSL-T32FP50 211 days.
2. NOAA NCEI, 1991-2020 monthly normals, Nashville International Airport — Monthly normal highs and lows, precipitation and snowfall (MLY-TMAX, MLY-TMIN, MLY-PRCP, MLY-SNOW NORMAL).
3. NOAA NCEI, 1991-2020 monthly day counts, Nashville International Airport — Monthly nights at or below 32 F (January 19.7 to December 17.2) and days at or above 90 F (July 14.3, August 13.0).
4. National Weather Service Nashville, April 7, 2006 tornado outbreak — F3; entered Hendersonville from Goodlettsville at 1312 CST and struck Gallatin at 1325 CST; 7 deaths, all in Gallatin; about 700 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed in Sumner County; 80 homes destroyed in Hendersonville.
5. National Weather Service Nashville, December 9, 2023 tornadoes — Madison-Hendersonville-Gallatin tornado: EF-2, estimated peak winds 130 mph, 35.23 miles, 600 yards wide; around 600 homes and businesses damaged in Sumner County.
6. National Weather Service Nashville, calendar of significant Middle Tennessee weather — 1925 F4 from near Buck Lodge; 1970 F4; 1998 White House hail; March 2-3, 2023 winds up to 80 mph; January 22-23, 2026 ice of 0.50 in or more; Portland extremes of -19 F (1963) and 105 F (2007).
7. US Army Corps of Engineers, Old Hickory Lake Shoreline Management Plan (2020) — One-inch cutting limit, limbing to one third of height and 12 ft, mowing limits, 4 ft paths, 22,500 acres and 440 miles of shoreline at normal pool, allocation shares of 50, 36 and 14 percent.
8. Gallatin Department of Electricity, tree trimming policy — Three-year trimming cycle, 15 ft minimum clearance, service wires left to the owner, free disconnection and reconnection in business hours, customer cleanup after emergencies.
9. US Census Bureau QuickFacts, Gallatin city, Tennessee — Gallatin: 30,278 (2010), 44,431 (2020), 54,590 estimated July 1, 2025, up 22.8 percent from the 2020 base; the other places come from their own QuickFacts tables.