The NCDC has released the final figures on temperature and precipitation for September 2008, and nationwide, last month was the 49th warmest and 38th wettest during the 114 years data has been kept. Here in Georgia, we had an average temperature of 74.4 degrees, slightly cooler than the 20th century average. For the entire 114 year period since 1895, the state’s temperature was right in the middle, both the 57th coolest and the 57th warmest September.

(more…)

If you have looked at the morning weather forecasts over the past few days, you might have noticed that high temperatures did not reach what was predicted. Despite forecasts for the mid 70s today, the high in Lawrenceville didn’t make it above 68. On Tuesday, the high was 75 in Lawrenceville, and 80 in Atlanta.

Blame the whole thing on cold air damming, popularly known as the wedge effect, where high pressure at the surface is trapped by the mountains and is overrun by lower pressure. We’ve got a high located near the Georgia/North Carolina border that is interacting with lower pressure arriving from the west. Since air at high pressure is heavier than air at low pressure, the lower pressure air forms a ‘blanket’ over the high pressure, causing cloudiness, lower temperatures, and winds from the east.

Tuesday, the damming effect wasn’t as pronounced, and ended just west of Gwinnett, so Atlanta wasn’t affected, and got warmer than it did further east. As the high moved further south, it got stronger, affecting a wider area today.

(more…)

It’s the third Thursday of the month, when the Weather Service releases plenty of data, both forecasts for the next month and a look at the previous one. So, let’s take a look.

The National Climate Data Center reports that last month was the eighth warmest June globally this century, and the 27th warmest June in the US since 1895. Is it global warming? The NCDC also reports that Arctic sea ice was the at third lowest level since record keeping began in 1979, while Antarctic sea ice was at the second highest level recorded.

A lot of the US warmth last month was concentrated in the Southeast, which had the ninth warmest June in the last 114 years. All but the northern third of the country was warmer than normal, as you can see in the following chart:

On the precipitation side, it’s not hard to guess that the upper Midwest was much wetter than normal, with poor Iowa having its second wettest June ever, and much more than normal precipitation in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. The drought kept its hold on Georgia (11th driest) and California (4th driest), the Carolinas and Tennessee all being much drier than normal:

(more…)

Despite predictions of a reasonable chance of rain this past weekend, it looks like June will end up adding to the North Georgia drought. Overall, it ended up being drier than normal and warmer than normal in the northern half of the Peach state.

The official Atlanta rain gauge at Hartsfield airport ended up having the lowest measured rainfall for the month, with only .58 inches, or 16% of normal precipitation. Over half of that rain (.32 in) came during Sunday’s storm. Peachtree DeKalb had 1.15 inches for the month, 29% of normal, with only .11 inches falling Sunday. Athens had .73 inches of rain on Sunday, more than half of its 1.22 inches for the month, 31% of normal. Gainesville ended the month with 1.94 inches of rain, or 51% of its normal June total, and had only .12 inches Sunday. A little further south in Macon, rainfall was more plentiful, with 3.54 inches, 154% of normal for the month.

Here in Lawrenceville, I only recorded a measly .03 inches of rain in Sunday’s storm, but ended up with 2.24 inches of rain, mostly from the storms on Thursday and Friday nights. That’s still about 2/3 of the 3.75 inches of rain you would expect in a normal June. Atlanta is now just over 7 inches short of normal year to date rainfall.

The month will go down as the third driest June recorded in Atlanta - the record was .16 inches back in 1988. It was the fifth driest in Athens, and the ninth driest in Columbus. It was also warmer than normal, averaging around 3 degrees above the average temperature, primarily due to our early June heat wave.

(more…)

The June heat wave continued to set records today throughout the east coast. Here are some of the new records:

Atlanta: 98 degrees, with the old record of 97 set in 1995. In addition, this morning’s low temperature of 76 was warmer than the previous high minimum temperature for June 9th of 75 degrees.
Athens: 102 degrees, besting the previous record of 99, set in 1926.
Columbus: 97 ties the record set back in 1986
Macon: 100 ties the previous record from 1954.

Other locations in Georgia, including Augusta, Gainesville, Albany and Savannah also saw highs in the upper 90s, but failed to break any records. Here at my unofficial weather station, I recorded 97 degrees around 2:30 PM. Additional records from around the eastern seaboard:

Raleigh, North Carolina - 99 degrees breaks previous record of 98 set in 1999
Richmond, Virginia - Tied record high of 98 set in 1999.
Atlantic City NJ - 98 degrees beats previous record of 96 set in 1984
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Tied record high of 95 set in 1999
Hartford, Connecticut - Tied record high of 96 set in 1984
Providence, Rhode Island - 97 degrees tops previous record 95 set in 1984
New York LaGuardia Airport high temperature of 99 tops previous record of 95 from 1984
Newark, New Jersey ties old record of 99 set in 1933

(more…)