Rain from Fay finally reached north Georgia yesterday, and it looks like she’ll be sticking around through Wednesday or Thursday. She has begun to move to the northeast, and forecasters have adjusted her track further to the east, bringing the storm over Birmingham and finally exiting Alabama north of Huntsville.

Storm rainfall reports through early this morning show Thomasville (west of Valdosta) with 17.43 inches of rain, and Moultrie with 6.2 inches. Closer to home, Atlanta recorded .37 inches of rain between 8AM yesterday and 8 AM today. Gainesville had 1.63 inches and Marietta had .99 inches. Here in Lawrenceville, I’ve had .85 inches–more than twice the amount of rain that had fallen so far in August.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the radar, and it appears that the storm is moving very slowly. There’s been a storm over extreme Northeast Georgia all morning, and the weather service has issued a flash flood warning for Habersham and Rabun counties. Most of the rest of the rain is still over in Alabama, and the southern part of that state is seeing some tornadoes. Along the Georgia coast, the weather is much better, and it appears they’re golfing on Jekyll Island again.

By the time Fay finally makes here exit late this week, it will be time to start worrying about Gustav, the next storm in the tropical Atlantic. The tropical wave that is likely to become Gustav has been following a path that is remarkably similar to that of Fay, with the center of the wave located south of the Dominican Republic. The Hurricane Center issued a Tropical Disturbance Statement, which is a good indication that the wave will become a named storm later today.

Update: At 11 AM, the National Hurricane Center named the storm a tropical depression, and by 2 PM, it was upgraded to a tropical storm named Gustav.

As she continued to move over land, Fay was downgraded to a tropical depression last night, and the Hurricane Center issued its last advisory for the storm. Her center was located 70 miles southeast of Jackson, Mississippi late this morning, and her remnants will drift towards the Mississippi Valley before starting to turn northeast later this week. By Thursday evening, the center of the remnant low is expected to be near the Alabama/Tennessee/Mississippi border.

Since crossing into the Florida peninsula late Monday, Fay has dumped a lot of rain in Florida and along the Gulf coast. Here are some rainfall totals from the storm as of 8 this morning:

Melbourne Beach, Florida - 25.28 inches
Cape Canaveral, Florida - 22.83 inches
Tallahassee, Florida - 19.17 inches
Jacksonville, Florida - 11.58 inches
Valdosta, Georgia - 8.54 inches
Albany, Georgia - 4.92 inches
Savannah, Georgia - 3.16 inches
Columbus, Georgia - 3.15 inches
Brunswick, Georgia - 2.89 inches
Dothan, Alabama - 4.17 inches
Montgomery, Alabama - 3.81 inches
Jackson, Mississippi - 3.92 inches
Beaufort, South Carolina - 5.34 inches

Now, the big question is how much more rain Fay will bring to the southeast before she finally disappears. To the right is the five day total rainfall forecast from Sunday morning through Friday morning. With the expectation that Fay will move northeast beginning tomorrow and that low pressure systems typically eject most of the rain to the right of the storm’s center, there still remains a reasonable chance for north Georgia and Alabama to receive some drought relief before it’s all over.

Eight to nine inches of rainfall in Lake Lanier’s drainage basin would be such a bad thing, It’s all going to depend on when, where and if Fay stalls out.

It may not be a tropical storm, but Georgia is going to have its best chance for significant rainfall on Tuesday and Wednesday as a low pressure system brings tropical moisture up from the Gulf coast.  There could be over two inches of rain in some parts of central Georgia:

Unlike the storms we’ve had recently, this front is approaching from the southwest, and is going to be fairly slow moving–more typical of what Georgia sees in the winter rather then the summer. The big question is how far north the bulk of the rain is going to go. Forecasters with the weather service are predicting most of the rain will stay south of and along the I-85 corridor, but the models are varying somewhat in how far north the front will go before it gets stalled. I’m hoping for a good soaking, since most of the recent rain has been north of I-85, and my part of Gwinnett has seen little to no rain in the last two weeks.

While the rain will be welcome, I’m going to miss the delightful weather we’ve had over the weekend. With dew points down around 50 degrees, nighttime temperatures have dropped, and even the daytime is bearable, especially compared to last year, when we were at the end of the first week of temperatures in the upper 90s to low 100s. With the change in the weather tomorrow, we’re going to enter a more typical summertime weather pattern, with a decent chance of rain from thunderstorms for the next week or so.

Next week could also bring increased chances of increased tropical activity. While the storms so far this year have had no effect on Georgia’s weather two low pressure systems that are likely to develop into tropical storms later this week are more likely to affect Florida and possibly Georgia as well. Stay tuned.

Gwinnett County’s best known sporting event comes to town next week — the AT&T Classic golf tournament, to be played at Sugarloaf Country Club in Duluth. This PGA tournament has suffered in the past from bad weather when it was contested during the last weekend in March, just before the Masters, including having sleet, snow and rain fall several years ago.

As a result, the PGA moved the tournament to the third weekend in May last year, and golf fans saw picture perfect weather. I’ve been keeping an eye on the long range forecasts for next week, and unfortunately, the weather picture does not look good.

The image to the right shows an animated view of the GFS model prediction for temperature, wind and 12 hour rainfall from 1 AM on Thursday through 1 PM on the Monday after the tournament. As you can see, there’s a lot of dark blue and purple moving through Georgia for most of the tournament, with the exception of Saturday morning, when things take a little break. The weather finally clears out on Sunday night, just as the Classic is supposed to end.

Of course, forecasts could change in the next 7 to 10 days or so, but the 6-10 and 8-14 day forecasts from the CPC are both calling for more than usual rainfall and cooler than normal temperatures. Accuweather has also been fairly consistent in calling for rain when the Classic is going to be played.

After a 10 day period with little or no rainfall, we’re due for some rain, and we’re likely to get some beginning on Thursday and lasting through the weekend. After some calm weather early on the week of the 12th, it’s the rain scenario outlined above.

As someone who enjoys the golf tournament every year, I’ll be disappointed if the forecast comes true. On the other hand, given the drought, I’ll take the rain compared to last year, when only 1.1 inch of rain fell for the entire month of May.

It looks like we could have a record cold temperature this evening/Wednesday morning.  The current record low for April 30th is 40 degrees set back in 1969.  Forecasters are calling for a low of 36 in Lawrenceville, but only 42 for Hartsfield Airport, so it’s going to be close.  The Weather Service has issued a frost advisory for most of the state north of Macon.

The cold air is caused by Canadian high pressure sweeping into the area following last weekend’s rain.  Usually these cold blasts end around the first of April because developing high pressure off the Atlantic Coast (the proverbial Bermuda High) strengthens enough to counteract the approach of the cold front from the north.  Between this round and the cold weather back in the middle of the month, we’re likely to end April with below normal temperatures for the month.  You can be glad you’re not in Chicago or as far south as West Virginia, which have had a late season snowfall.

(more…)