It looks like Old Man Winter is going to take one more shot at Georgia over the next few days, and that could be bad news for gardeners and farmers across the state for a second year in a row. The Weather Service is calling for low temperatures in Lawrenceville of 36 degrees on Sunday night and Tuesday night, and 34 degrees Monday night. Across the state, lows are expected to be in the upper 30s Monday morning, and 31 in Atlanta, 32 in Athens, and 30 in Macon on Tuesday morning.

Accuweather.com is calling for lows of 34 on Sunday night, 30 Monday night and 39 Tuesday Night, while Weather.com says it will be 36 Sunday night, 31 on Monday and 33 on Tuesday.  In comparison, temperatures dropped to 28 degrees the nights of April 6 and 7, 2007, the infamous Easter Freeze that caused widespread damage to spring flowers and crops.

My guess is that the damage won’t be as bad as what we saw last year– it looks like it will be a little warmer– but I wouldn’t suggest you plant any annuals this weekend.  You should also bring in any houseplants or container plants you’ve set outside until at least Wednesday. If the worst does happen, Walter Reeves has a good article on coping with freeze damage.

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Some random weather observations as Georgia’s (lack of) April showers will bring forth May Flowers:

• The third of an inch of rain we got on Thursday didn’t go very far to help the rain deficit we’ve had this year — about half of what we would get in a ‘normal’ year. This week, virtually all of Georgia is officially in a moderate drought, or worse, according to the Georgia Drought Monitor. The most extreme drought conditions are in the area affected by the fires in southeast Georgia.
• Accuweather.com is saying that the United States may be facing another Dust Bowl similar to what we had in the 1930s. The idea is that strong hurricane seasons correlate with dry conditions in the Plains states. Meanwhile, another forecaster is saying he doesn’t see an end to the dry conditions in the Southeast until tropical weather comes to disrupt the prevailing weather patterns.
• The next two weeks will probably bring warmer than normal conditions to much of the country, including Georgia. We’ll see temperatures in the mid 80s, when the normal high should be around 75 degrees.
• Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi is predicting another busier than usual hurricane season this year. The early indications are for a return of the storms to the Gulf Coast states, and continuing possibilities for hurricanes in the Northeast.
• I spent some time in Asheville, North Carolina this week, and if you think the Atlanta area suffered because of the Easter cold spell, you should see Asheville. Temperatures there dropped to 20 degrees Easter weekend, and most of the spring beauty one could expect to see at Biltmore Estate was wiped out. It seems that most of the trees were just beginning to send out leaves, and they all froze, giving a mid-winter look to the mountains. Viburnums, Azaleas, Wigelias — all were wiped out.
• Lawrencevilleweather.com will be moving to a new server sometime next week. As more and more people visit the site, and with the addition of more maps and features, performance hasn’t been exactly great. The server move should make for faster page displays. It’s scheduled for Monday night, although that could change. There should only be a 15 minute disruption, and I’ll be checking things out on Tuesday morning to make sure everything’s running OK.

This morning’s cold weather set a record at Atlanta’s Hartsfield airport, where the low dropped to 28 degrees, breaking the previous record of 29 in 1986. It was 29 in Athens, one degree short of the record there.

A little bit to our north, a record low for the day, and for all of April was set in Asheville, North Carolina with 20 degrees. Greenville, SC also tied a record of 28 degrees set in 1950. Chattanooga, Tennessee saw a record low of 27, breaking the previous record of 28 in 1952.

Over in Alabama, Huntsville broke a record set in 1950 of 27 degrees with a morning low of 25. In Muscle Shoals, it got down to 26, breaking the previous record of 30.

Tonight it’s expected to be even colder than it was last night, meaning more records could be shattered by the end of the weekend. Here are the low temperatures forecast for tomorrow morning:

Update: We also had a record low for April 8th, both here and in Atlanta. It got down to 27.9 degrees in Lawrenceville, and 30 degrees in Atlanta, breaking the old record of 32, set more than 100 years ago, in 1886.

The New York Times had a little blurb in its weather section this morning that contrasted the “January Thaw” — a time in January where the weather gets milder than normal — with the “April Pause” — when rapidly rising temperatures take a step backward and it gets cold again. The Times says this is a fairly regular phenomenon, and we’re going to see it in spades this weekend.

Here in Atlanta, a Freeze Warning has been issued for much of North Georgia tonight (but not the core metro Atlanta counties), and a freeze watch for as far south as Vidalia for Friday and Saturday nights. Temperatures could drop into the upper 20s through Sunday night. On Sunday night, there’s even the threat of some snow or ice in Middle Georgia, as approaching moisture from the Gulf Coast meets the cold air, although the moisture, at this time, doesn’t look like it will get as far north as Atlanta.

Records are likely to be shattered. The lowest morning temperatures recorded for the next few days are:
Friday: 28 degrees in 1891
Saturday: 29 degrees in 1982
Sunday: 32 degrees in 1886
Monday: 32 degrees in 2000

So, bring in your plants (and turn off your automatic sprinkler, if you have one). Even after it begins to warm up on Monday, we’ll probably continue to see cooler than normal weather through mid-month.

Blog reader Morgan commented that he is concerned that North Georgia is entering a drought period. Looking at recent rainfall statistics, it certainly seems that way.

For March, Atlanta had 1.31 inches of rain, compared to a normal 5.4 inches: only 24% of normal. Here in Lawrenceville, we did a bit better, with 2.05 inches, but still way below what one would expect (and the year to date totals are equally miserable).

Actually, the situation may not be as bad as it looks. Here is the current drought situation in Georgia, as of March 27th:

All of Georgia is considered abnormally dry, with the northwestern corner of the state in a drought — although not Atlanta. This is about the same situation that we were in back in October, 2006.

The outlook though isn’t as bad as it might seem:

While the short range looks bad (at least through the end of April), the longer range prediction for soil moisture at the end of June is that we will be in the normal range. And, Northeast Georgia is getting more rain than Atlanta is, which means that the Chattahoochee and Lake Lanier are getting replenished.

Meanwhile, it’s time to run the sprinklers, but keep in mind the current watering restrictions.

As far as my estimate in the previous post of an inch or two of rain, it obviously didn’t happen. Most of the heavy rain stayed in South Georgia, which wasn’t expected at the time I was trying to figure out what we might have gotten over the weekend.

I’m going to stand by my prediction of much colder than normal weather for this weekend. The Climate Prediction Center is now calling for a killing frost as far south as the Atlanta area between Wednesday and the next Monday. As of the time I write this, the low for Sunday morning is predicted to be 34 degrees — just above freezing.