I’ve added a stripped down version of the LawrencevilleWeather.com home page and forecasts that you can easily access from your mobile phone when you’re on the go and want to know what’s happening with the weather.

The graphics light version should appear automatically if you’re using an IPhone, Ipod, TMobile G-1 (Android) and some others. You can go to www.lawrencevilleweather.com or, if you hate typing, you can go to lzuwx.com and get to the same place.

You’re not going to get all the big graphics that are available on the regular site, since they don’t size well to the smaller screen you have on your phone. But, you will get the forecast and warning information, and I’ll probably add some other pages that can be made phone-friendly.

If you see the regular site with the graphics and all on your mobile, let me know via a comment here, and I’ll see what I can do to get your phone supported.

Oh, and why lzuwx.com, besides the fact that it’s short? LZU is the abbreviation that airplane pilots and the FAA use for Lawrencevillle’s Briscoe Field, and WX is a common abbreviation for weather.

This is going to be one of those grab-bag posts. Sometimes I see things in the news that are weather related, but don’t post immediately about them.There have been a few things like that recently, so here goes.

We’ll start with the drought, and more specifically, the effects on the Atlanta water supply. As Lake Lanier remains at near record low levels, Georgia EPD Director Carol Couch has asked the Army Corps of Engineers to reduce discharges from the lake to create a flow of 650 CFS at Peachtree Creek on the Chattahoochee River. This is similar to a reduction made last spring which, Couch argues, didn’t cause any environmental damage, and would save some 11.7 billion gallons of water.

Meanwhile, Senator Obama has apparently decided that Florida is more important than Georgia, telling potential Sunshine State voters he would side with them when it comes to deciding who gets water from the Apalachicola Chattahoochee Flint river basin. This prompted a quick response from Senators Isakson and Chambliss expressing their disappointment with his comments. It’s another reason to think carefully before you decide to vote for the Chosen One.

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I’ve spent a busy weekend working on the site, and have made several improvements. The first is a change in the way that I get current conditions, which is now much faster than it was previously. As a result, the state conditions page (see here for Georgia) now comes up much faster. I’ve also added area conditions to the home page, and expect to add area conditions to other locations as time allows.

For Atlanta area residents, this won’t be a big deal, but I have now added high and low tide information for forecasts along the coast, such as Savannah. You can also start at the tides center, and drill down to see high and low tide charts for most US coastal areas.

The other new feature displays river flows and heights for many rivers and lakes across the country. Many people are interested in the water level at Lake Lanier. Of course, there a gabillion river gauges, so you can start here to see where flooding might be occurring or to drill down to gauges in your area.

I’m going to be working on providing both short term (3-6 hour) and long term (8-15 day) forecasts in the near future, so you might see some changes to the way the forecasts look as I experiment with them.

A while ago, I mentioned that I would be improving the capabilities of the Tropics section of the website. This has been continuing over the past few weeks, and as of this evening, I’ve added support for the display of Tropical Invests. As it so happens, there are a number of active invests right now, which you can see in this map of the Atlantic Tropical Basin, or in the map below, which isn’t live:

An invest is a low pressure system that hasn’t yet developed into a tropical depression, but is of interest, because it could. Think of it as a ’storm of interest’ that the Hurricane Center is paying attention to to see if it will develop into anything. For example, Invest 90L is the system that’s brought the rain this week to North Georgia, but is unlikely to develop into a storm. However Invest 92L could well develop into a tropical storm or worse, depending on exactly where it goes.

You can view a map of an invest’s path, and you can also view what forecast models predict the storm’s path will be.

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve had a chance to post some weather news. This time of year is pretty slow as far as weather goes … it’s a little too early for any real tropical weather activity, and except for the occasional thunderstorm, the forecast is typically hot and humid.

But, the weather does move in patterns, and now it looks like we’re back into the same type of weather we saw in late May, which you may remember was highlighted by a lack of rainfall, with high pressure off the Atlantic keeping any moisture well to our west.

We got somewhat of a break from the dry pattern as the first half of the month ended, although it took an unusual storm from the northeast to do it. And, even then, rainfall was spotty, depending on whether a thunderstorm passed through your neighborhood. Since the first of the week, we’ve seen temperatures in the 90s and low dewpoints, which makes outdoor activity bearable, but keeps the raindrops away.

The Weather Service issued its forecast for July, and the three month outlook for July through September last week, and as indicated by the title of this post, for the Southeast, it’s likely to be hot and dry. July’s outlook proffers warmer than normal temperatures for the east and west coasts, and cooler than normal weather for the nation’s midsection. The Plains states are likely to be the only place in the country with more than average rainfall, although there’s an equal chance of above or below normal precipitation everywhere else except for the mountain west.

The three month outlook amplifies the heat, especially in the southwest. Most of the eastern part of the country has a 40% likelihood of warmer than normal temperatures. Expected tropical weather brings a better chance of rain form much of the east coast during the latter half of the summer.

Tropical storm Barry, along with the recent rains further north have provided some drought relief, particularly for south Georgia and Florida. At right is the drought outlook from mid-May, and the latest outlook, issued last Thursday.

While the portion of the map showing a chances of improvement keeps moving north and west, the drought is spreading north as well, with much of Ohio and Indiana moving into a persistent drought. While I wish no ill will towards our friends in the rust belt, perhaps this movement of the center of the drought northward might mean some relief for the southeast.

Maps Update

You might have noticed the new 12 hour regional forecast on the home page, as well as in the map section of the site. I’ve added the ability to click on the map to view a seven day forecast for the location clicked on, much the same way as clicking on a weather warning map displays active warnings for that location. The forecast map, along with many others, can now be animated, showing the changes in the weather over a several day period.