I live about an hour from the Smokies. This is the first year that the grass has turned brown in my yard, due to the lack of rain. Sevier County is far from the only county in Eastern TN which has been hit.
We got a little rain tonight, but the amount was far too small to help out.
I wonder if the severe drought we have had in eastern states is a continuation of the weather pattern that brought heat and fire early this spring to the countryside around the tar sands mining in Canada where they had to evacuate a town of 80,000 and about 10 or 20% of the homes burned.