Pardon me for borrowing a trademark, but it certainly seems appropriate given today’s rainfall. Now that the bulk of the precipitation is over, it looks like I got 2.31 inches of rain today, the largest single-day rainfall since July 7, 2005, when Tropical Storm Cindy visited North Georgia.  Some other reported rainfall amounts in the Atlanta area include 2.1 inches in Alpharetta, 1.68 inches in Atlanta (Clark University), 1.8 inches at Atlanta Hartsfield, 1.17 inches in Dallas, 1.89 inches in Dunwoody, 1.61 inches in Gainesville, 2.05 inches in Griffin, 1.81 inches in Johns Creek and 1.57 inches in Watkinsville. It looks like the most rain fell in Athens, with 3.16 inches of precipitation.

That means we’ve tripled the amount of rain for all of September, at least here in Lawrenceville.  The Weather Service is reporting Macon’s September rainfall was the third lowest on record, and Columbus had the fifth lowest September rainfall total since recordkeeping began. Macon and Columbus aren’t suffering too badly for the year, however, with Macon short about 2.33 inches and Columbus short only .78 inches of rainfall through September 30th. In contrast, Atlanta was 8.25 inches less than normal and Athens was a whopping 11.97 inches less than normal rainfall through the end of last month.

We still have a chance of getting some more rain overnight as the low pressure system moves through the state.   Then, things look to dry out for a while.  While I appreciate the rainfall, it would be nice if it were spread out a little bit more.

Topical Storm Hanna ended up not causing as much damage as it could have, making landfall Saturday morning near the North Carolina/South Carolina border with winds bringing it close to but not quite hurricane strength. Over the course of Saturday, it moved rapidly north disrupting, among other things, the NASCAR night race at Richmond, Virginia and the US Tennis Open in New York. The storm has become extratopical, and is now heading east towards the United Kingdom.

Hanna’s rainfall will help ease drought conditions in North and South Carolina. Here are some rainfall totals from the storm:

Cape Fear, NC - 3.02 inches
Lumberton, NC - 5.0 inches
Whiteville, NC - 4.47 inches
Wilmington, NC - 2.33 inches
Darlington, SC - 3.1 inches
Myrtle Beach SC - 4.41 inches
Newark, DE - 3.69 inches
Atlantic City, NJ - 2.89 inches
East Brunswick, NJ - 5 inches
Ridgewood, NJ - 4.72 inches
Allentown, PA - 3.06 inches
Philadelphia, PA - 2.27 inches
Manhattan, NY - 3.54 inches
White Plains, NY - 4.42 inches
East Hartford, CT - 6.19 inches
New Canaan, CT - 6.45 inches
Warwick, RI - 4.07 inches
Boston, MA - 2.2 inches
Needham, MA 6.1 inches
North Grafton, MA - 6.41 inches
Nashua, NH - 6.56 inches
Kennebunkport, ME - 5.8 inches
Portland, ME - 5.52 inches

With Hanna (and Gustav) out of the way, the big concern now is Ike, which appears to be the last of this wave of storms that started back on August 15th with Fay. (Josephine faded away from shear a few days ago). Ike is a category 4 hurricane that pretty much demolished Grand Turk Island last night, and at 5 PM was 75 miles northeast of Guantanamo Bay, headed towards landfall on Cuba. The storm is moving west at 14 MPH with 120 MPH winds extending 60 miles from the storm’s center.

The major factor guiding Ike’s path is an upper level high pressure system over the North Atlantic ocean. Ike is underneath this system and is being prevented from moving north. After it crosses Cuba and emerges into the Gulf, Ike is expected to strengthen, and his path will be determined by what happens with the high. If it weakens, Ike may move towards the Florida panhandle. If it maintains its position, we could be seeing landfall somewhere in Louisiana. And, if it were to intensify westward, landfall might be in Texas. Whatever happens, landfall isn’t going to be until late next week or next weekend.

In the meantime, it looks like the Atlanta area may have its first real rain since Fay departed. We are also being affected by the ridge that’s controlling Ike, but it’s possible that a cold front or two may make it this far south midweek. The HPC is predicting up to an inch of rain by Friday. Then depending on where Ike makes landfall, he is expected to move northeast, and may affect our weather by the weekend, although it’s still too early to tell how much.

It looks like the worst of Fay has finally left north Georgia, although some counties to the east of Atlanta are having tornado warnings, the tornado watch was just extended until 2 AM Wednesday for much of northeast Georgia and South Carolina, and a flash flood watch remains in effect until 8 PM. We may get a few more showers overnight, but there are bits of blue skies showing. Fay is becoming extratropical, and will move northeast to bother the mid Atlantic states for the next day or so.

Let’s take a look at some of what Fay has done. First of all, Lake Lanier has risen about six inches as of noontime today from where it was early Monday morning. Much of the Lake Lanier watershed received some good rainfall over the past day or two, including Gainesville, with 2.64 inches so far today and .73 inches yesterday and Helen with 4.01 inches over the past two days. I expect Lanier to continue to rise over the next few days as much of the runoff from the storm continues to flow into the lake.

With 2.07 inches of rain today and .99 inches on Monday evening and Tuesday, I’ve recorded 48 hour precipitation of 3.06 inches at my weather station. Today’s rain here is the most in one calendar day since November 15, 2006, when 2.19 inches of rain fell, and as best as I can tell is the most 2 day precipitation since Tropical Storm Cindy came through on July 6-7, 2005, leaving 4.62 inches of rainfall.

My station, which is obviously not official, is on the low end of the rainfall scale. Some other two day rainfall totals include Alpharetta with 5.39 inches, Atlanta Hartsfield with 3.09 inches, Cleveland with 5.14 inches, Cumming with 4.52 inches and Cedartown, with 2.87 inches. It looks like Thomasville, Georgia is going to have the most rainfall from Fay–even beating anywhere in Florida–with a whopping 27.5 inches total precipitation through 2 PM today.

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Rain from Fay finally reached north Georgia yesterday, and it looks like she’ll be sticking around through Wednesday or Thursday. She has begun to move to the northeast, and forecasters have adjusted her track further to the east, bringing the storm over Birmingham and finally exiting Alabama north of Huntsville.

Storm rainfall reports through early this morning show Thomasville (west of Valdosta) with 17.43 inches of rain, and Moultrie with 6.2 inches. Closer to home, Atlanta recorded .37 inches of rain between 8AM yesterday and 8 AM today. Gainesville had 1.63 inches and Marietta had .99 inches. Here in Lawrenceville, I’ve had .85 inches–more than twice the amount of rain that had fallen so far in August.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the radar, and it appears that the storm is moving very slowly. There’s been a storm over extreme Northeast Georgia all morning, and the weather service has issued a flash flood warning for Habersham and Rabun counties. Most of the rest of the rain is still over in Alabama, and the southern part of that state is seeing some tornadoes. Along the Georgia coast, the weather is much better, and it appears they’re golfing on Jekyll Island again.

By the time Fay finally makes here exit late this week, it will be time to start worrying about Gustav, the next storm in the tropical Atlantic. The tropical wave that is likely to become Gustav has been following a path that is remarkably similar to that of Fay, with the center of the wave located south of the Dominican Republic. The Hurricane Center issued a Tropical Disturbance Statement, which is a good indication that the wave will become a named storm later today.

Update: At 11 AM, the National Hurricane Center named the storm a tropical depression, and by 2 PM, it was upgraded to a tropical storm named Gustav.

As she continued to move over land, Fay was downgraded to a tropical depression last night, and the Hurricane Center issued its last advisory for the storm. Her center was located 70 miles southeast of Jackson, Mississippi late this morning, and her remnants will drift towards the Mississippi Valley before starting to turn northeast later this week. By Thursday evening, the center of the remnant low is expected to be near the Alabama/Tennessee/Mississippi border.

Since crossing into the Florida peninsula late Monday, Fay has dumped a lot of rain in Florida and along the Gulf coast. Here are some rainfall totals from the storm as of 8 this morning:

Melbourne Beach, Florida - 25.28 inches
Cape Canaveral, Florida - 22.83 inches
Tallahassee, Florida - 19.17 inches
Jacksonville, Florida - 11.58 inches
Valdosta, Georgia - 8.54 inches
Albany, Georgia - 4.92 inches
Savannah, Georgia - 3.16 inches
Columbus, Georgia - 3.15 inches
Brunswick, Georgia - 2.89 inches
Dothan, Alabama - 4.17 inches
Montgomery, Alabama - 3.81 inches
Jackson, Mississippi - 3.92 inches
Beaufort, South Carolina - 5.34 inches

Now, the big question is how much more rain Fay will bring to the southeast before she finally disappears. To the right is the five day total rainfall forecast from Sunday morning through Friday morning. With the expectation that Fay will move northeast beginning tomorrow and that low pressure systems typically eject most of the rain to the right of the storm’s center, there still remains a reasonable chance for north Georgia and Alabama to receive some drought relief before it’s all over.

Eight to nine inches of rainfall in Lake Lanier’s drainage basin would be such a bad thing, It’s all going to depend on when, where and if Fay stalls out.