Archive for the ‘Musings’ Category

The Cold Weather Won’t Last Forever

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

Metro Atlanta is battening down the hatches this evening in preparation for the coldest weather yet this season. Radio stations have opened up their storm centers, even though except for the relatively high winds, there’s no storm in sight. Actually, I like Walter Reeves advice the best: turn off your automatic sprinkler systems so you don’t wake up to a sheet of ice for the next few mornings.

Cold weather in December isn’t all that unusual. In 2005, temperatures got down to 20 degrees just before Christmas, and in 2004, it was 17 degrees on December 20th. Those temperatures are comparable to what I expect we’ll see over the next few mornings.

If you’re not a fan of the colder weather, the good news is that once this spell is over, we’re likely to see a warmer period that could last almost through Christmas Day. By Monday, temperatures will moderate with highs in the upper 50s, and lows in the 30s. The following week, we could even see highs in the upper 60s, and lows in the 40s. The warmer weather is also likely to bring us some rain during the period as well.

I spent the day upgrading the website, adding some new maps, and hopefully making it easier to use. Now that winter is in full swing, I’ve added a new Winter Weather page which shows maps of snowfall levels and predicted snowfall for the next 24 hours. There’s also a discussion of major snow and ice storms expected over the next few days.

I’ve also modified the home page to add some additional forecast maps, and to make the maps easier to use. Now, you can click on a tab to see warnings and radar, temperature and precipitation forecasts, and current conditions. I’ve got a little more work to do to finish everything up, especially when trying to display a larger map of some of the forecasts, but it should be done by the end of the weekend.

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Cold Weather Gives Way to Wet

Thursday, October 26th, 2006

Temperatures for the past three days have been 15 degrees cooler than normal, on average, bringing us temperatures below freezing, if only briefly, yesterday morning. Fir the month so far, the mean temperature here of 59.8 degrees is four degrees cooler than what would be expected in Atlanta (which has its heat island), and 1.5 degrees cooler than what would be expected in Athens.

The cool spell has ended, however, and is going to be replaced with rain through Saturday morning. The remnants of Hurricane Paul, which made landfall in Mexico yesterday, are moving east, and will bring us between two and four inches of rain over the next two days. The map to the right shows the expected rainfall amounts between now and 8 AM on Saturday.

We can use the rain, since we have had less than half of the precipitation that would be expected for October. It’s interesting to note that despite the perceived lack of tropical weather this season, both this storm and the rainmaker back on October 17th that provided the month’s only other significant precipitation are the result of tropical systems. Once the system clears out on Saturday, expect pleasant late October weather through the end of the week.

This weekend marks the annual change of the clocks back to standard time. The latest sunrise of the year is on Saturday, at 7:52 AM, later than the midwinter sunrise time of 7:42 in early January. This will change next year, however. Instead of moving to daylight time the first Sunday in April, we’ll spring forward on March 11th, the second Sunday in March, and the sun will rise at about the same time it is now. Also next year, we’ll wait until after Halloween to change the clocks back, making the switch on the first Sunday in November. That will push the sunrise to 7:58 AM.

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Is This Summer’s Last Blast?

Thursday, October 5th, 2006

Most areas in North Georgia enjoyed temperatures today in the mid to upper 80s in advance of an approaching cold front that will drop temperatures by 10 degrees by the weekend. Unfortunately, this front probably won’t be bringing us any rain - which we sorely need.

However, it looks like conditions will be changing drastically in another week. Right now, the upper level weather pattern features a ridge in the eastern half of the US, and a trough in the west. The ridge is responsible for the warm, dry weather we have seen for the last week or so.

By next Friday, the pattern is expected to flip, bringing a trough to the Eastern US. We will move from highs in the mid to upper 70s to highs in the 60s, and lows possibly in the 30s for the period from the 13th through the 17th or 18th, with a higher than normal chance of rain.

So, enjoy this weekend’s weather, do your gardening, and get up the early leaves - this may be the nicest weekend we’ll see for a while.

On another note, we’re now past the most rapid period of the fall for loss of daylight. Since the third week of August, we’ve lost over two minutes of light per day - and about an hour and a half of daylight through the period. This rate is now beginning to slow down, and will continue slow until the Winter Equinox in December, when the days will begin to get longer again.

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Dog Days of Summer May End Soon

Monday, August 7th, 2006

This weekend’s turn to (slightly) cooler weather didn’t seem like much of a relief, mainly because dewpoints stubbornly remained in the low 70s, making it feel just as warm as it had been when it was hotter. However, the high temperature on Sunday of 86 degrees was the first day since July 24th when the temperature didn’t rise above 90 degrees.

The cooler weather is imminent, however. In northern Alaska, they are now seeing their first sunsets since May, which will bring the temperature down, eventually, in the lower 48. The Dog Days officially end on Thursday, August 10th. And, the Weather Service is predicting a cooler than normal stretch of weather between the 15th and the 21st, when the eastern trough, which is just now getting its start, will make its way into Georgia.

Until then, though, it’s hit or miss thundershowers, with highs in the low 90s.

As far as tropical weather goes, Dr. Gray’s team at the University of Colorado has reduced the number of predicted tropical storms from 17 to 15 for this year, and the number of hurricanes from 9 to 7. Compared to last year, the season has gotten off to a slow start with only three named storms to date, but keep in mind that last year was a bit exceptional. August and September are always the busiest times in the tropics, and the forecasters continue to predict that there is a better than normal chance of a storm or hurricane hitting the Atlantic coast this year.

Finally, for those of you that went to check the weather over this past weekend, you may have found out of date information. The internet connection that sends current weather conditions to the website was erratic, but all the problems appear to be fixed. Please accept my apologies.

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Warm Spell Ready to End - For a While

Thursday, July 20th, 2006

The spell of hot weather we’ve seen for the last ten days is winding down. A trough split is likely to bring cooler weather to Georgia through the end of the month, with high temperatures below 90 degrees. Even better, we are likely to see some rainfall during the period, unfortunately most likely this weekend and next weekend, but with less than 20% of normal rainfall for July, who’s complaining.

While the lack of rain exacerbated the effects of the warm weather, we were nowhere near record breaking temperatures, which are typically the hottest of the year for the third week of July. The high temperature this week was 96 in Atlanta, and 97 here, however the records for the week are all in the 100s, including the 105 degree all time high temperature in Atlanta, set on both July 13th and July 17th, 1980. (From July 6th through 17th, 1980 holds the record high temperature six times. I remember that year — it was one month after I moved to Georgia, and I wondered what I was getting into). Still, we’re averaging about 1 degree above normal July temperatures.

Other parts of the country have seen plenty of records fall, though, particularly in the upper Midwest and Plains states. Even Europe is getting into the act — England recorded its warmest temperature ever this week, and you can see the parched course at the British Open on TV.

Tropical Storm Beryl is getting ready to hit the Northeast with more rain. While bringing relief from the heat, that part of the country is the one area that doesn’t need any more precipitation.

Looking beyond the end of the month, the heat is likely to return in August to many of the same places we saw it for most of July. The Climate Prediction Center just released its preliminary forecast for August, and on the temperature side, it largely matches the forecast for this month, except for the Carolinas, where normal rather than warmer than normal temperatures will be seen. Look for normal precipitation for August, which will likely be an increase over what we saw this month.

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