Chamber of Commerce Weather for AT&T Classic
The folks over at the PGA tour have to be pretty happy with the weather in Gwinnett this week, as the AT&T Classic plays out over at Sugarloaf Country Club in Duluth. Cool morning temperatures, afternoon highs in the 70s, and low humidity have made for good golf, especially with the tournament’s past record of miserable weather when it was played in late March.
The pleasant weather is courtesy of a upper level trough in the midwest that is bringing in cooler air from the northeast, and it looks like we’ll continue to see slightly warmer but still pleasant weather through the Memorial Day weekend, with a slight chance of rain on Thursday or Friday.
Of course, all this good weather comes with a price — the continuing lack of rainfall in Georgia. The latest drought monitor doesn’t show much of a change from previous weeks, which is little consolation, since much of the state is in a level one or worse drought. Last weekend’s thunderstorms brought a lot of rain to a few areas, but were too spotty to make much of a difference.
The latest drought outlook for May through August promises some improvement over the summer, based on traditional summer weather patterns and the start of the thunderstorm season. The long range outlooks for the June and the summer period are neutral for rainfall throughout the southeast. The weather service says that the drought conditions date back to last summer, when a lack of tropical storms left the state dryer than normal going into the winter. Indeed, the hurricane season, which starts in less than two weeks, may be what brings an end to our dry spell.
The graph above shows annual precipitation in Georgia for each year from May through April. While it’s clear that the past year has been very dry, you can see that there is a lot of variation from year to year.
Finally, last month turned out to be the 17th coldest April in Georgia since recordkeeping began in 1895, primarily due to the Easter freeze. It was also the 16th driest April in the 113 years of recorded data.
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