Smoke Continues to Spread from Georgia Wild Fires
The wildfires that have burned in south Georgia for almost three weeks now continue to be visible on satellite images. The picture below, taken about 10 AM this morning shows smoke drifting from northern Florida to eastern South Carolina:
The Savannah area has especially suffered from low visibility due to smoke over the last few days, while smoke continues to plague the Valdosta area, although not as much as it did on Monday.
There might be some relief on the way this weekend, as the slow-moving storm that started earlier this week finally reaches Georgia. Some parts of north Georgia have reported spotty rainfall this afternoon, and it looks like the chance of rain will increase through Saturday. Expected precipitation amounts could be about half an inch over the weekend, although probably less in the area affected by the fires.
Forecasters are expressing low confidence in their predictions for this weekend because of the nature of the front. Right now, a stationary front is draped over the Georgia - Tennessee - North Carolina border, and it will be pushed south over the next few days by high pressure to the north. This is likely to cause cold air damming, or a wedge to set up over our area — fairly unusual for this late in the season.
Meanwhile, the long range outlook for fires in the southeast US doesn’t look very good.
The National Interagency Fire Center Wildfire Potential outlook for May through August, 2007 calls for an above normal chance of wildfires for much of South Georgia and Florida, as well as a section of Western North Carolina and Virginia. The agency looks for relief later this summer as potential La Nina conditions and tropical weather could bring in rainfall.
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