It’s been about ten days since I last posted. I guess you can blame the lack of posting on a combination of chamber of commerce weather in the Atlanta area, my trying to get the garden in shape and a busy April that is taking me out of town three times this month.

There really hasn’t been much to complain about the weather since the cold threat back on April 14-15.  Even that turned out to be a bust, with temperatures hovering just above freezing. We seem to have settled into a pattern of beautiful weekday weather, with a cold front coming in on the weekend to bring rain.  It looks like that pattern might continue for another week or two.  Rain is expected both this weekend and next. It’s bad news for the weekend gardener trying to plant annuals in wet soil.

Of course, wet soils are the least of the problems for much of the Midwest and Northeast, which have been inundated with precipitation, leading to flooding.  Missouri had its second wettest March ever.  Cape Girardeau, Missouri had 13.84 inches of rain in 48 hours last month–about what the Atlanta area has seen all year.  Pennsylvania and New York had their third wettest March since recordkeeping began.  Georgia ended up having its 36th driest month, however it appears that for a change, the northern half of the state had closer to normal rainfall than the southern half.

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Some folks in North Georgia got an unusual late March sight: snow flurries fell briefly this afternoon.  Although it was 45 degrees outside, much colder air aloft combined with lower pressure caused by a short wave passing through squeezed out just enough moisture for the flakes, which melted on contact with the ground. Temperatures today are 20 degrees cooler than normal, and the northern two thirds of the state will see a freeze tonight.  If you succumbed to the spring planting urge over the weekend, either bring your plants in, or at least cover them over.

Tonight’s freeze won’t be anywhere near as bad as the Easter Freeze of 2007. though.  Not only is it likely to be a bit warmer than the 28 degrees recorded last April, but not as many plants have started to bloom. A freeze in late March isn’t too unusual.  For metro Atlanta, the typical last frost occurs sometime between April 1st and April 15th.

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The first three weeks of January have brought a batch of unusual weather to metro Atlanta and North Georgia, seemingly to make fun of early-season forecasts, which called for a warmer than normal and drier than normal Winter.  But, if you look at things more closely, we may not be that far off from the original prediction.

The month started out with a cold blast, getting as low as 16.5 degrees on the third, the lowest temperature of the month. Four days later, the temperature topped 70 degrees on the 7th, the warmest day of a five day streak when highs were above 60, at least ten degrees above normal.  After a few days of more or less normal temperatures, we again saw a plunge over the weekend, when the thermometer refused to budge over 32 degrees on Sunday–that’s the second time this year that’s happened.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta area saw some light snow and sleet last Thursday, and got an inch or so on Saturday, depending on where you were.  Due to the cold weather, some of that snow is still on the ground, at least where I live.  And, the Weather Service as posted a Freezing Rain advisory for much of the state north of Atlanta, including Hall County, for tomorrow morning, as another storm prepares to roll in.  Three wintry precipitation events in a week seem like a lot.

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Wednesday night’s threatened winter storm didn’t end up causing too much difficulty for the metro Atlanta area. The onset of snow between 5 and 5:30 PM managed to put about a quarter inch of the white stuff on my yard and caused the temperature to drop below freezing, but by 7:30 PM, temperatures rose above 32 degrees, and stayed constant or warmed up as the overnight hours passed.

Nonetheless, at least some freezing rain was noticed in parts of Gwinnett, even if it was in limited areas. I noticed that ice was still sticking to trees after noon today along Wisteria Drive in Snellville, and the pine trees along Ronald Reagan Parkway were similarly burdened. So much of what happens in a winter storm is temperature dependent, so just a variation of a degree or so can make a big difference.

The continually varying weather we’ve seen this winter has brought relatively normal precipitation to drought-starved North Georgia. December ended up with more than the normal amount of rainfall, and the official rain gauge in Atlanta is close to what we would expect so far in a normal January.

The latest drought outlook, released today and shown at right, calls for improving conditions for much of the northern part of the state including Atlanta, with at least some relief for the rest of the state. We should see another chance of rain and/or snow Friday night and Saturday morning, with more precipitation for the latter part of next week.  Both the 6-10 and 8-14 long range outlooks call a better than average chance of rainfall.

We’re not out of the drought yet.  But, with drier than normal conditions predicted for the winter due to the presence of La Nina, it can’t be a bad thing that precipitation is running close to normal.

It looks like North Georgia is headed into some fine weather this weekend, with mostly clear skies, and high temperatures close to normal. There are a couple of quick weather-related items to keep an eye on as you enjoy the weekend:

• In years past, this would be the weekend we would ‘Fall Back’, and reset our clocks to standard time. Due to the changes made to the time law two years ago, that date has now been pushed back a week to accommodate the Halloween trick or treaters. The main downside to this, at least for those of us in the western part of the time zone, is that on the last day of Daylight Savings Time on November 3rd, the sun won’t be rising until 7:58 AM. Watch your computerized automated clocks tomorrow morning; some may not be programmed to recognize the new time change date.
• Early Tuesday morning could bring the coldest weather so far into the region. with overnight temperatures dropping below 40 degrees. There will be a warmup after that, but only short term. By the week of November 5th, we could be seeing temperatures in the low to mid 30s. Actually, that’s about normal. The first freeze date in the Atlanta area is typically around November 10th. Last year, Athens recorded the first freeze on October 24th, but it took until November 21st in Atlanta. In any case, now would be a good time to think about bringing in any plants you plan to keep over the winter.
• High pressure is likely to keep metro Atlanta rain free this week. The big question is whether the tropical season is going to come through with one more shot. Forecasters are keeping an eye on an area of low pressure south of Haiti that could develop into a tropical depression or storm early next week. Forecast models indicate that if it develops, the storm could pass across the Gulf of Mexico, and curve back over Florida. We will see if this comes to pass, and if it will bring some needed rain to Georgia.