A few interesting weather notes tonight…

First of all, there is going to be a total eclipse of the moon tomorrow night, the only one until sometime in 2010. As you c an see from the chart below, the event begins shortly before 9PM, reaches totality somewhere around 10:30, and ends shortly after midnight on the 22nd.

Unfortunately, it looks like most folks in Georgia will not be able to view too much, since the forecast is for increasing cloudiness Wednesday evening, as the next storm system moves in. That’s too bad, since this is one that will be visible from beginning to end for much of the eastern part of the country. But, step outside tomorrow night if you have a chance, to see a rare event. You can find more at NASA’s Lunar Eclipse Page.

Georgians hoping for some relief from the drought shouldn’t mind missing the eclipse too much, since the oncoming clouds herald a very good chance for significant precipitation. The latest HPC numbers call for over an inch through Saturday morning, and more rain over the weekend. This is actually down a bit from their morning outlook, which predicted up to three inches of rain through Sunday morning. Accuweather is calling for 2 inches on Thursday or Friday. Any way you slice it, the additional rainfall combined with last Sunday’s rain will increase stream runoff, helping Lake Lanier refill.

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