Rainfall Critical to Breaking Southeast Drought Before Summer 2008
With both Atlanta and Athens, Georgia on track to record their driest years ever, it’s becoming ever more important that the area receives sufficient rainfall during the winter months. Continued lack of precipitation could mean that drought conditions in 2008 will be worse than in 2007.
Georgia State Climatologist David Stooksbury writes that while recent rains have helped some in increasing groundwater and stream flows, it’s by no means a break in the drought.
The current La Nina pattern indicates the state is likely to experience the warm and dry conditions we’ve seen so far in December for the rest of the winter. The latest drought outlook from December through March predicts that the drought will persist throughout Georgia, except for the far northwest corner, with drought development in southeast Georgia and North Florida.
The longer term CFS ensemble outlook (click the image at the right to enlarge) also looks fairly grim, with less than normal precipitation forecast to continue through May.
The bottom line is that the precipitation we get this winter will determine conditions this summer. Or, as Stooksbury puts it,
Sphere: Related Content“The extreme- to exceptional-drought regions of the state will probably muddle through the winter and early spring. But without a significant recharge of the soil moisture, groundwater, streams and reservoirs, conditions next summer could become catastrophic in these regions.”
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