This afternoon’s thunderstorms were responsible for hail, damaging winds and even a few tornadoes to Georgia, but on the upside, they brought needed rain as well.  In advance of an approaching cold front, the storms fired up from west to east, with the worst of the storms affecting the Atlanta area between 5 and 6 PM.

Looking at the Georgia storm reports,  there were reports of damaging winds bringing down power lines and trees in west Georgia, tornado spottings in southwest Georgia and quarter inch hail.  In metro Atlanta, some minor flooding was reported in Tucker, and there were tornado warnings issued for Fulton and Gwinnett counties based on radar soundings, however no tornadoes were reported in the metro area.

The storm did bring some needed rain to the area.  As of 7:30 PM, here are some reported rain amounts:

Alpharetta: 1.18 inches
Johns Creek: 1.18 inches
Dunwoody: 1.21 inches
Gainesville: 1.17 inches
Lawrenceville:  0.77 inches
Dahlonega: 0.98 inches
Jonesboro: 0.36 inches
Dallas: 1.01 inches

The good news is that the heaviest rains occurred on the north side of the metro area, and should add to the runoff into lakes Lanier and Allatoona. With the cold front pushing in, any additional rainfall tonight will be light.  And, with more rain predicted for the end of the week, we might be able to make a dent in the slow refilling of the lakes.

Last week, much of the eastern part of the country shivered under conditions that brought below freezing weather to Florida, and the coldest weather in three years to Atlanta.  This week, things have turned around, and extremely warm temperatures are the rule along the Ohio River valley.  Take a look at the temperatures recorded around 10 PM this evening:

For January 7th, that’s extremely warm.  For example, at 9:50 PM, it was 63 in Cincinnati (about 10 degrees warmer than in Atlanta). Their normal high for this time of year is 38 degrees; yesterday was 33 degrees above normal, with a low temperature only dropping to 58. In New York, it’s currently 59, with temperatures yesterday running 22 degrees above normal. In general, the warm temperatures of the last two days have wiped out the effects of the cold spell, and for the month so far, temperatures east of the Mississippi are running one to two degrees above normal.

You can see that west of the warm weather, temperatures are much colder.  This is a classic situation for thunderstorms and tornadoes. There are tornado watches in effect for northern Illinois, northern Ohio, and much of Michigan, as well as for much of Missouri.  The line of storms is caused by the same system that wreaked so much havoc on Northern California and Nevada earlier this week. The storms will reach the Atlanta area Tuesday evening, and after a few days of welcome rain, we should be back to more normal temperatures, at least for a while.

The heat wave in Atlanta continues. Today’s high temperature of 103 degrees recorded at 12:46 PM at Hartsfield-Jackson airport beat the previous record of 101, set back in 1980. Meanwhile, here in Lawrenceville, the temperature on Thursday also crossed the century mark, to 101.5 degrees, the highest temperature I’ve recorded since I started keeping records in 2002. It could be worse…you could be playing at the PGA Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where it’s currently 97 degrees with a heat index of 105, and expected to stay very warm.

Speaking of records, Brooklyn, New York recorded its first-ever tornado on Wednesday morning—one of three to hit New York City since recordkeeping began. The F2 storm, along with the associated torrential rainfall ground the NYC morning commute to a halt, flooding subways and stalling buses. Central Park recorded 2.5 inches of rain, while 3.47 inches of rain fell at Kennedy Airport in Queens.

With all the heat and drought in Georgia, we could certainly use some of the rain that fell on New York yesterday, and the Weather Service has come through with its updated hurricane forecast. Similar to last week’s predictions by Dr. Gray, the Weather Service is still calling for a stronger than normal season, but has dropped the number of storms by one from its original forecast.

The prediction now is for 13-16 named storms, instead of 13-17, and 7-9 hurricanes, rather than 7-10. The number of predicted intense hurricanes remains at 3. Overall, there’s an 85 percent chance of an above normal season in 2007. Forecasters say that they are more confident of their prediction now because of a favorable climate leading to storm development.

As the above chart shows, the peak of the tropical season isn’t until after Labor Day. Typically, there are one or two storms during June and July, and things don’t really start to pick up until mid-August.

After a day that brought up to six inches of snow in Dahlonega, and icy conditions to parts of the north metro area (but not Gwinnett County), the groundhogs have made their annual predictions for the arrival of spring.

Both Beauregard Lee and Punxatawny Phil woke up this morning, and didn’t see their shadows. According to legend, this means that spring is just around the corner.

You wouldn’t know it from some of the more traditional models of weather forecasting. The overall weather pattern in the United States has a ridge in the west, and a trough in the east. This is allowing brutally cold air to descend from Canada into the middle of the country and then move eastward, while the western part of the country stays warm.

This weather pattern will probably stay in place for the next week to ten days. Even though the coldest part of winter is theoretically over, we’ll be lucky to see 50 degrees the week of the 12th, even though by then the high should be around 55. After that, there’s a possibility that the pattern will shift to more favorable weather, or at least something that gives us the possibility of seeing 60 during the day.

Meanwhile, central Florida got a taste of one of the bad things about spring — strong tornadoes. At last report, at least 19 people died when a tornado ripped through the Orlando area early this morning. The satellite picture below shows central Florida this morning, and highlights Lady Lake, one of the towns severely damaged by the cyclone.

Here in Georgia, we typically don’t get the worst tornadoes until March. The Weather Service has scheduled Severe Weather Awareness Week for the week of February 19th, including a statewide tornado drill on the 21st.

The Weather Service has determined the severe storms that rolled through much of Georgia on Sunday, January 7th caused an F2 tornado in Coweta County around 6:40 PM. On Friday, another storm caused an F1 Tornado in the same general area.

Sunday’s tornado caused a four mile swath of damage 1/4 mile wide in the sparsely populated western part of the county. At least one home was destroyed. Wind speeds were estimated to be between 125 and 135 MPH, and many other homes and trees were damaged.

Friday’s tornado caused damage just west of Newnan along Highway 34. The tornado’s path was six miles long and 200 yards wide. Damage was less severe than Sunday’s storm, although barns, homes, and trees were damaged.

Much of the western half of metro Atlanta saw severe storms, heavy rain, and wind damage as the squall line preceding the cold front came through. State officials estimated a total of $2.5 million damage as a result of the storms. Gwinnett was largely spared any damage, mostly because by the time the storm got here, it was well after dark, and the storm’s intensity had lessened.

So is Newnan the next tornado alley? The fact that the two storms hit the same general location was probably coincidental, although both storms followed the same general path from southeast to northeast. I remember several years ago people were calling Cobb County tornado prone, after several storms caused damage in that area. And, Gwinnett has seen it’s share of tornado damage as well.

I do want to give a tip of the hat to Glenn Burns, David Chandley, and Brad Nitz over at WSB TV. The three provided outstanding coverage of Sunday’s storm through 8 PM, long after other stations had gone to their normal programming.

As far as upcoming weather goes, it will stay relatively warm through next weekend, but after that, a combination of colder temperatures and above normal precipitation could bring us our first taste of wintry weather the week of January 15th.