July – December, 2004 Weather Notes
Here are the weather notes for the last six months of 2004 originally published on the About page of lawrencevilleweather.com.
December 30th As is typical of Atlanta area weather, what was extremely cold temperatures ten days ago has turned into weather more appropriate for March. Today’s high was a balmy 65°, and similar weather is predicted through the New Year’s weekend. Temperatures will stay warm through the first week of the new year, although we may see some rain. While the warm weather is welcome, it’s not record setting. That honor seems to go to 1984, which recorded a string of above 70 ° weather days at the end of that year.
December 26th Christmas week brought wintry weather to much of the country, including areas not known for a white Christmas. Snow from Brownsville, Texas to New Orleans, and record-setting snowfall in the Ohio Valley are just some of the week’s highlights. Despite the threat of wintry weather in Atlanta and middle Georgia, we lucked out, as the threatened precipitation fell on the Carolinas instead. Meanwhile, there was heavy rain on Christmas in the Sarasota area, where I spent the holiday, much to the dismay of my two nephews, who were unable to go outside to play with their new model airplanes.
December 20th: This is the coldest morning that we have had in almost two years. With a low of 16.9°, it hasn’t been this cold since January 24th, 2003, when it got down to 14.4°. The previous low for this year was back on January 4th, when it was 18.5°. At least we don’t have snow to put up with!
December 14th For the first time, the National Weather Service is predicting a chance of possible snow flurries for Monday. Kirk Melhuish mentioned a possibility of snow for Christmas week, but didn’t call it a forecast. We’ll see if the predictions get any worse. Meanwhile, we’re seeing the coldest temperatures of the season so far, but my guess is that it will not be as cold as predicted.
December 11th Many thanks to the folks who took time to email me after reading an article about this website in the Gwinnett Daily Post. One person wrote, “What a fantastic site. I have added it to my favorites, and will utilize your information frequently.” Another person emailed to say, “It is great to find a truly detailed local forecast.” There were also some suggestions for some new features, which I will see about adding in the near future.
On the weather front, it looks like we will get the coldest weather of the season next week. Lows on Wednesday and Thursday morning are predicted to be in the mid-20s, with the Weather Channel predicting as low as 22°. As Walter Reeves said this morning, if you’ve still got any plants outdoors, now is the time to bring them inside.
December 9 Beginning tonight, the sun starts to set later in the evening. It won’t begin to rise earlier in the morning until early January, which explains why the shortest day isn’t until December 21st. By the end of the year, we’ll have gained an additional ten minutes of evening daylight.
November 26 I finally figured out how to get the XML forecast from the National Weather service, and have added a new page with hourly weather predictions. By requesting parameters specifically for the Lawrenceville area, the forecast should be more accurate than the broad-based general forecast issued for the metro Atlanta area.
November 21 This weekend, I have been converting the way I obtain National Weather Service data for the forecast page. Previously, I used FTP to get data from the NWS servers, then processed the data and inserted it on the web page. The new method relies on an XML data feed from the weather service that should be more timely, and will require less processing power.
Still to come is getting the forecast data via XML. This will allow me to produce a customized forecast specifically for the Lawrenceville area. Stay Tuned.
November 12 As of today, rainfall in Gwinnett County is almost four inches short of what is recorded year to date at Hartsfield Airport. I believe some of the difference is due to the hurricanes we experienced in September. On the other hand, it often appears that the city acts as a block to rainfall: the rain is worse on the west side of the city than it is on the east.
October 31 Last night, the temperature sensor on the Oregon Scientific station went out, and appears to be unfixable. As a result, I switched to a new Davis Instruments Vantage Pro system that I picked up after the hurricanes in September. The new system has several advantages, including the ability to store weather data in case the PC goes out, plus some additional reporting statistics. For the moment, we will lose the soil temperature reading, at least until I purchase the optional soil temperature sensor. I also hope it will be a bit more accurate than the old OSI system, since it will record rainfall in hundredths of an inch (The old system recorded in .04 increments), and will measure wind speed every second, instead of every ten seconds.
On the weather front, it’s been extremely warm for the last week or so. A front coming in on Tuesday will cause the temps to return to a more normal reading.
September 17 Hurricane Ivan brought 4.57 inches of rain to Lawrenceville on Thursday, with approximately 3 inches falling between 5:30 and 7:00 PM. Atlanta recorded 4.63 inches through 8 PM on Thursday. Hurricane Frances only brought 3.23 inches back on September 7th. The low barometer reading was 29.53 inches of mercury, lower than that recorded for Hurricane Frances.
On a side note, the high recorded wind on Thursday was a relatively low 18 MPH. This reading is obviously lower than the actual wind speeds we saw. There are two reasons for this: The wind gauge is located in trees that are taller than it is, which dampens the effect somewhat, and the gauge only records the wind speed once every 15 seconds, which means that a short wind gust will be missed. Someday I may upgrade to a weather station that records the speed more frequently.
July 16 A low dewpoint of 56 degrees on Thursday made for some wonderful weather, which is predicted to continue through today. Meanwhile the effects of scattered thundershowers around the area are showing. While Hartsfield airport has had less then half an inch of rain this month, here in Gwinnett, we’ve had almost two inches.
June 30 The National Weather service just updated its Hydrologic Forecast for Georgia and the short summary is that with all the rain we’ve had, the short-term drought is over for much of Georgia, and with more expected rain through the middle of July, the drought may be completely over with in the next few weeks. With Atlanta rainfall measured at 5.16 inches, and Athens at 3.67 inches through June 28th, Lawrenceville is at 3.82 inches.
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