While I suppose that North Georgia should be grateful for any rainfall it receives, today’s rain did very little to reduce the deficit we’ve had in November, much less for the year. Locations in Atlanta, Gainesville, and North Fulton counties all reported less than 1/3 of an inch of precipitation… here in Lawrenceville, I recorded .22 inches. While there’s a chance of more rainfall overnight, it looks from the radar that the following cold front is moving in, and the rain is moving out.

So as of now, I’ve recorded .67 inches of rain in November, a month that typically has slightly over four inches of precipitation. That’s 20% of normal. so far. There’s a good chance that we’ll have more before the month ends.

After a blustery day on Tuesday, conditions improve for Wednesday and Thanksgiving. By early Friday morning, though, another round of rain is headed our way. The moisture for Friday’s rain will come both from the Gulf an the Pacific, and we could see over an inch between 1 AM and when the rain moves out after sunset. (Sorry shoppers, but you’re likely to get wet on Black Friday).

If you believe the latest GFS forecast models, more rain will be on the way Sunday to end the month, and December will start with some rain on Wednesday the third. Both those storms are predicted to bring over an inch of rain to the area. The models have been known to be wrong before, but we can hope for the best.

It looks like the colder than normal temperatures will be continuing as well, at least for the next two weeks or so. The CPC long range outlooks call for below normal temperatures to continue for most of the US through December 8th. Atlanta’s November temperatures are running 3.3 degrees below normal for November, and December should be below normal as well.

With colder than normal temperatures and higher than normal precipitation in the forecast, does this mean that Atlanta has a chance for some rare December snow? Typically, when it’s cold, we have dry weather, while when there’s precipitation, it warms up. There’s no snow in the forecast yet, and the odds of a white Christmas are statistically very low.

It may not be a tropical storm, but Georgia is going to have its best chance for significant rainfall on Tuesday and Wednesday as a low pressure system brings tropical moisture up from the Gulf coast.  There could be over two inches of rain in some parts of central Georgia:

Unlike the storms we’ve had recently, this front is approaching from the southwest, and is going to be fairly slow moving–more typical of what Georgia sees in the winter rather then the summer. The big question is how far north the bulk of the rain is going to go. Forecasters with the weather service are predicting most of the rain will stay south of and along the I-85 corridor, but the models are varying somewhat in how far north the front will go before it gets stalled. I’m hoping for a good soaking, since most of the recent rain has been north of I-85, and my part of Gwinnett has seen little to no rain in the last two weeks.

While the rain will be welcome, I’m going to miss the delightful weather we’ve had over the weekend. With dew points down around 50 degrees, nighttime temperatures have dropped, and even the daytime is bearable, especially compared to last year, when we were at the end of the first week of temperatures in the upper 90s to low 100s. With the change in the weather tomorrow, we’re going to enter a more typical summertime weather pattern, with a decent chance of rain from thunderstorms for the next week or so.

Next week could also bring increased chances of increased tropical activity. While the storms so far this year have had no effect on Georgia’s weather two low pressure systems that are likely to develop into tropical storms later this week are more likely to affect Florida and possibly Georgia as well. Stay tuned.

We’re here at the beginning of the last week of Dog Days, the warmest part of the year, and the temperatures haven’t been disappointing. Highs over the last few days have been in the mid 90s, five or six degrees above normal. Both June and July saw 97 degrees, though, which we haven’t seen in August. Be glad we aren’t in Texas, where temperatures have been over 100 degrees for the last three or four days.

At least Texas is going to get a bit of a break with Tropical Storm Edouard getting ready to bring plenty of rain to much of the Bluebonnet state. I wish the same could be said for here, where I’ve had less than two tenths of an inch of precipitation in the last two weeks. Most of my plants are wilting, and it’s a challenge to try to use my little bit of watering time to apply first aid to the plants that are showing stress the most. As I said in my last post, other areas have had no problem with rainfall, but the thunderstorm gods haven’t decided to visit my corner of Gwinnett county.

Rain chances may increase on Wednesday or Thursday, though. Models indicate that a cold front could pass through midweek. The problem is that typically Georgia doesn’t get cold fronts in the dog days of summer–they usually don’t have enough energy to get this far south. Accuweather is optimistic, though, calling for over an inch of rain before Friday. I hope they’re right.

I received a nice note from a blog reader in northeast Cobb county reporting that they got quite a bit of rain over the last week. He estimated that about ten inches had fallen where he lives. Well, 10 inches would be quite a lot of rainfall — more like what we would see as the result of tropical weather, and looking at some of the estimated precipitation data from the weather service, they don’t have anything like that reported. That being said, it looks like Marietta did have the highest amount of rainfall over the last week.

From July 7th through yesterday, here are the rainfall totals for some metro Atlanta locations:
Athens: 2.79 inches
Atlanta: 3.91 inches
Gainesville: 1.92 inches
Marietta: 4.18 inches
Chamblee (Peachtree DeKalb): 2 inches
West Atlanta (Charlie Brown): 1.83 inches

For the month of July so far, here are some totals:
Athens: 3.31 inches
Atlanta: 4.82 inches
Allatoona Dam: 6.07 inches
Alpharetta: 3.1 inches
Ball Ground: 5.55 inches
Carrollton: 1.52 inches
Gainesville: 1.92 inches
Helen: 4.45 Inches

Here in Lawrenceville, I’ve recorded 2.03 inches for July to date. So, it’s fair to assume that locations in the northwest got more rain than did those on the east or south of Atlanta. July is typically the rainiest month on average for Atlanta, with 5.12 inches in a typical year. However, the capriciousness of thunderstorms means that rainfall amounts can vary widely, even over a relatively small area.

We probably won’t have to worry too much about rain for the next few days. Behind the cold front that pushed through last night is much drier air, and you’ll see low humidity and dew points for the next few days. That also means cooler evening temperatures, and no weather problems for the primary election on Tuesday.

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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