Some Relief From The Drought
The last few days brought some needed rain to the metro Atlanta area, which climatologists have now labeled as being in a drought. The welcome relief from the record setting warmth seen early last week was a result of two separate systems — the early weekend rain was mostly in the northern and western parts of Georgia, and was caused by a low pressure system in the Ohio valley. Those of us in the eastern part of the state got their rain courtesy of a tropical low pressure system moving up the Atlantic coast from Florida.
The odd mix of two storms meant that, depending on where you were, you either got a lot of rain, or just a little. Below is a map of rainfall from midday Friday to midday Monday. As you can see, in metro Atlanta, Fulton County got soaked:
Rainfall amounts on Sunday varied from only .02 inches in Athens to 2.01 inches in Chamblee to .68 inches at Hartsfield Airport. Here in Lawrenceville, I recorded .59 inches of rain on Sunday. Add that to .42 inches in Thursday’s thunderstorm and another .23 inches today, and you’ve got almost an inch and a quarter for the five day stretch.
The good news is that at least for the short term, it should reduce water consumption. And because the rain came over a several day period, more had a chance to soak into the ground and replenish soil moisture.
Now, the question is what happens next? The rain should be gone by Tuesday afternoon, and we should actually see some very pleasant weather through the beginning of the weekend, with less humidity. Forecast models are predicting a trough to dominate the weather in the east over the Independence Day week. The ultimate position of the trough will dictate the amount of rain we see.
Troughs, which are large areas of upper level low pressure, typically mean cooler than normal temperatures and, depending on where you are, more wet weather then normal. Long range predictions for the period from July 2nd through July 10th had been calling for below normal temperatures and above normal rainfall, but as of this afternoon, the predicted cool weather remains, while the chances of rain are about normal, except on the Georgia coast.
What ultimately happens depends on how far south the trough goes, and the effects of a high pressure ridge to our west. Earlier models saw the trough advancing further south, bringing rain. The latest models see a pattern more similar to what we saw in the first part of May, with the trough staying north, and bringing rain to the northeast, while Atlanta and the south saw dry, although not unpleasant, weather.
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