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.

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The US Fish and Wildlife Service released its biological opinion today, allowing the Army Corps of Engineers to reduce the water volume flowing into the Apalachicola River from 5,000 cubic feet per second to 4,750 CFS, and later to 4,500 CFS.  The reduced flow levels can continue until June 1st, at which point the situation will be reevaluated.

While the intention of the move is to keep more water in Lake Lanier, officials at a press conference in Atlanta said that the amount of water actually released from the lake on any given day will depend on conditions all along the  Apalachicola - Chattahoochee - Flint river basin. For example, heavy rains along the Flint basin in South Georgia might mean that no water would have to be released from Lanier, but continued dry weather elsewhere would cause the Corps to release additional Lanier water.  The situation is monitored on a daily basis.

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It’s been four weeks since the Georgia Environmental Protection Division declared level 4 watering restrictions in the northern third of the state. By now, I think everyone has realized that we’re truly in a drought situation, and counties and other water providers are struggling to figure out how to reduce consumption by 10% below traditionally low winter water usage.

At the state and federal level, officials are playing the blame game. Sonny Perdue is blaming the mussels in Florida; the Alabama and Florida Governors are making the case that they are legitimate water users, and even South Georgia is getting into the act, with the Valdosta Times saying,

“The wasteful ways of Atlantans continued through the past decade of severe drought in the state. The water restrictions meant little to them “up there” as they had plenty of water at the time, while rural Georgia and farmers were watching their crops burn in their fields, listening as Atlanta politicians who apparently do think their food originates in a grocery store passed policies designed to prevent them from accessing the water literally beneath their feet.”

I was reminded of an op-ed page that appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in July of 2006 by a photographer who went to Apalachicola Bay with a group of water experts to take pictures of the situation. The article, entitled “Lanier Not a Water Culprit” is no longer available online, so I went to the library to look it up on microfilm. Here are some of the key points the article made:

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Gwinnett County has added a new page to its website that addresses some of the issues with the ongoing drought, and the county’s water consumption from Lake Lanier. One of the main points is makes is that Gwinnett draws a much smaller amount from the lake than the Army Corps of Engineers releases from Buford Dam. That’s pretty well illustrated in the following chart, which compares water usage over the last two months:

The county also addresses the issue of water consumption, noting that per-capita water usage has fallen from 80 gallons per day in the 1990s to 71.7 gallons per day on average from 2003-2006. Of course, this measure doesn’t account for the growth in the county’s population over the last ten years.

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In response to my previous post, Rahn wondered what areas fed water into Lake Lanier, and the other area lakes. This was in response to my saying that rain north of Huntsville, Alabama would help reduce the drought. I did a little digging to find out the answer, and it may surprise you. Lake Lanier is part of what is called the ACF river basin. ACF stands for Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint, the three major rivers that ultimately drain down into the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. Lake Allatoona is part of the ACT river basin, whose initials stand for Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa. That basin also drains into the Gulf near Mobile, Alabama. The map below shows the boundaries of the two basins:

The brown part of the map is the ACT river basin, and the green and yellow parts are the ACF basin. The yellow portion is the part of the basin that drains into Lake Lanier.

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