We’re about to get some unusual weather, starting tonight, when a low pressure system in Indiana causes a cold front to pass through the Atlanta area. There’s a chance of thunderstorms, however since it didn’t get as warm today as initially forecast, they are not likely to be severe.

Monday and Tuesday bring the return of Old Man Winter. After a blustery day on Monday, temperatures will drop towards the freezing mark Monday night, with a chance of light snow. Right now, the thinking is that with the wind and precipitation, temperatures won’t drop below freezing, and if they do, it will only be for a short time.

The real risk of a late winter freeze comes Tuesday evening. Tuesday promises to be a colder version of Monday, with continued windy weather and a chance of rain early. By Tuesday evening, the rain, if any will diminish, and clear skies mean the chances for a freeze improve.

Will the freeze be as bad as the Easter Freeze of 2007? In checking various forecasts, I see predictions all over the map, from staying above freezing both nights to lows in the mid-20s Tuesday night. The forecast is complicated by the chance of rain, the winds, and the timing of the front’s movement. Everyone agrees that on Wednesday, we’ll begin to see a warming trend. Reviewing the Easter Freeze two years ago, we had temperatures below 30 degrees two days in a row, with temperatures below freezing for eight hours on the seventh. As you may recall, this caused lots of damage to the azaleas and spring flora. In addition, a warm March–four degrees warmer on average than March, 2009–caused more plants to be in bloom than what we’re seeing now. I’m hoping that the freeze won’t be that bad this year.

This week brings that little golf tournament two hours down the road in Augusta. Just like with the possible freeze this week, the Masters may or may not squeak by with good weather. Playing the practice rounds on Monday and Tuesday will be a challenge for golfers and spectators alike, with windy conditions, highs in the 50s and a chance of rain. will Augusta is more likely to get some rain Sunday night, meaning that the greens won’t be as fast in the practice rounds as Billy Payne might like.

By the time of the Par 3 tournament on Wednesday, temperatures will have warmed up and the winds will have died down somewhat. Practice may be delayed somewhat on Wednesday due to cold weather and frost. Temperatures could drop to the upper 20s, which would mean bad news for Augusta National’s famous azaleas.

Thursday should bring in great weather for the first round of competition, with highs in the mid 70s. However, the next upper trough could bring more rain sometime Thursday night or Friday. This system is moving slower than what was predicted a few days ago, when it was going to pass during the day Thursday. With any luck, it will move through overnight Thursday, otherwise we could have a rain delay on Friday morning.

The final two rounds should be OK, in advance of yet another system which at this time isn’t expected to move in until Monday the 13th. However, with a weather pattern as unsettled as this one is, things could change. Let’s hope for the best, which would be no freeze damage early in the week, and dry weather to follow, at least until the Masters is over.

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.

The Gwinnett Daily Post on Friday splayed its front page with the apocalyptic headline, “Rising, But Not Enough – Drought Still in Full Force.”  While the premise of the article is correct, that Lake Lanier won’t reach it’s normal full pool level by May, I would take issue with the “full force” part of the headline  It looks like Lanier’s pool will have risen by seven feet from its low point, while in a normal year, the lake would recharge by 8 or 9 feet. Rainfall this year is normal, with the exception of January.

Atlanta’s official precipitation measurement as of yesterday was 16.54 inches, 1.75 below normal for the year.  However, that’s almost twice the amount of precipitation we had through the same day in 2007, which was 8.41 inches. By my reckoning, it was sometime in June, 2007 before we had the amount of rain we’ve seen so far this year.

The drought took a few years of less than normal precipitation to get us to where we are now, and the only magic wand that could get us back to normal quickly would be some tropical activity coming our way this summer.  But, I would argue we may have turned the corner on the worst of the drought.

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.