Looking Back at 2006
With the end of the year only a few days away, I’ve been thinking about some sort of year in review, weather wise. However, taking a look back at what we saw in North Georgia during 2006, there really wasn’t much to catch the eye.
Unlike 2004 and 2005, where hurricanes brought flooding rains to the Atlanta area, this year’s relatively benign season brought only one storm to the area. Ernesto caused problems in Florida and further north at the end of August, but only brought minor rain to Atlanta. We really didn’t have any snow to speak of, and no major thunderstorms, hail or tornadoes.
This is not to say that there was no interesting weather this year — it just didn’t happen here. New York and much of the Northeast saw a major blizzard back on February 12th that brought record snowfall. Much of New England had an extremely wet spring, and Oregon had its most monthly precipitation ever in November. Parts of North and South Carolina saw the earliest snowfall ever on November 21st. Buffalo, New York had a record October snowstorm, made all the worse because there were still leaves on the trees. Denver is now suffering from its second blizzard in a week, and even Seattle saw an unusual snowfall in late November.
The Weather Service goes into much more detail on the past year’s weather in its 2006 Climate Annual Report.
Looking ahead, the start of the new year is likely to be warm and wet. The storm that is bringing snow to Denver will move East over the next 24 hours. It may or may not bring a lot of needed rain to Atlanta, because high pressure over the Atlantic will cause a cold air damming wedge beginning tomorrow. However, it’s a pretty safe bet to say that New Year’s Eve partyers will need to bring umbrellas.
After that, we’ll see temperatures 5 to 10 degrees above normal for the first week to ten days of the month, after which we may get a cold spell.
I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season, and good luck and good weather to you in 2007.
Sphere: Related Content