It seems like the cold weather just doesn’t want to go away. With the turn of the new year, the weather pattern changed as well, with high pressure systems over the Plains states and off of New England forming an opening between to allow unusually cold air to sweep southward. Mix that with a non-existent southern jet stream, and the cold moves across the eastern seaboard.

The map to the right shows the low temperatures across the country on January 9th. For the first ten days of the month, the mean temperature I’ve recorded here is 27.5 degrees–below the normal low for this time of year, which should be 33. The mean temperature for the same period in 2009 was 49.9.

We haven’t seen record cold, though. The lowest temperature I recorded here through the period was 13.5, last seen on January 16, 2009. The 13.9 chiller ties the record for the coldest temperature my thermometer has measured over the last eight years. Official records from Atlanta Hartsfield put the low records for the first ten days of the month in the single digits.

The good news (if there is any) is that with the extremely cold temperatures, we didn’t get a lot of precipitation. The snow on Thursday amounted to less than half an inch in my yard. Panic, school closings and shortages of bread and milk all occurred, but that’s par for Atlanta. I don’t know how much liquid precipitation fell on Thursday–snow and my rain gauge don’t play well together–but it was the longest stretch without rain since the latter part of November.

Elsewhere, heavy snow and cold led to snowplows being thwarted in the Midwest, and even snow flurries reported in Miami yesterday by the National Weather Service:

BY THE WAY…COUPLE TRAINED WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED A FEW SNOW FLURRIES IN THE WEST BOYTON BEACH… AND A FEW SMALL ICE PELLETS IN PALM BEACH THIS EVENING WITH THE RAIN SHOWERS. ANOTHER TRAINED STORM SPOTTER IN BROWARD COUNTY REPORTED A FEW FLURRIES IN OAKLAND PARK WITH THE LIGHT RAIN SHOWERS EARLY THIS EVENING…ALONG WITH A TRAINED SPOTTER IN MIAMI-DADE COUNTY REPORTING A FEW FLURRIES WITH SOME SLEET JUST SOUTHEAST OF TOWN AND COUNTY MALL.

It has been interesting to watch the forecasts over the past few days. Earlier last week, forecasts were predicting 50 degree temperatures today. It got up to 34. By Thursday, it’s supposed to be in the upper 50s. Want to bet it gets there? The models used to forecast upcoming weather assume that cold spells in the southeast are somewhat short-lived, so they try to get back to normal temperatures fairly quickly. This bias is what causes predictions of an earlier than actual warmup.

It will warm up. The North American Oscillation, which is a good indicator of temperatures on the east coast is trending positive, and the 6-10 and 8-14 day forecasts call for warmer than normal temperatures in the southeast. But, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another one or two rounds of colder than normal temperatures before winter ends in March.

And of course, when it finally does warm up by next weekend, what are we going to get? Significant rainfall and a chance of flooding. But that’s a topic for another post. And for those that asked I will try to post more. Blame the holidays and a busy schedule.

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With October now in the history books, it’s pretty clear that north Georgia had its second very wet month in a row. Athens reported 9.14 inches of precipitation, with only 1937 being wetter, with 11.23 inches. In Atlanta, Hartsfield-Jackson airport recorded 8.71 inches, with only 1995′s Hurricane Opal bring more October rain than last month, with 11.04 inches.

Here in Lawrenceville, I recorded 7.47 inches, in Gainesville, they had 11.2 inches or rain, with Macon and Columbus still top-ten wet, with 6.37 and 6.39 inches of precipitation, respectively. Even more of an eye-opener is the two month totals for September and October, shown graphically below:

The two month period saw 17.65 inches of rain fall in Atlanta, second only to 1888, when 18.25 inches fell. Both Athens and Macon had their wettest September and October ever, with 19 inches in Athens and 17.05 inches of rain in Macon. Columbus had it’s third wettest September-October with 11.69 inches, and in Lawrenceville, which received some of the heaviest rainfall in the September flooding, I recorded 23.3 inches for the period.

Usually heavy late-summer rain is brought about via tropical storms or hurricanes affecting Georgia, but not this year. (This season has had the least tropical activity since 1997, with one month to go before it ends). And of course the one benefit to all the rain is that it returned Lake Lanier to full pool, marking a recovery from the drought.

October also proved to be cooler than normal for North Georgia. Atlanta’s average temperature of 61 degrees was 1.9 degrees cooler than normal, while in Athens, the average of 60.7 degrees was 1.1 degree less than normal. Here in Lawrenceville, I recorded an average of 59 degrees, cooler still.

It looks like we’ll have a chance to dry out during the first two weeks of November, though, and perhaps see temperatures a bit warmer than normal for mid-Autumn. The short term forecast is for dry weather, while the 6-10 and 8-14 day forecasts are also calling for warm and dry. For the month as a whole, the Climate Prediction center calls for a 33% chance of drier than normal conditions, and equal chances of above or below normal temperatures.

Enjoy November, because the winter forecasts from December through February I’ve seen are almost unanimous in their call for a cold, wet winter.

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If you’re like me, you are probably sick of all the rain we’ve had over the past month or so. The good news, in addition to less rain today than predicted, is that the weather is going to change beginning on Friday. The bad news is that we are going to get cold.

A front passes through on Friday, blowing out all the rain and tropical air. Behind the front is some of the Canadian air that has been causing some record cold temperatures in the upper Midwest. And, because of a Nor’Easter that will be bringing snow to Pennsylvania and points north, the cold air will be driven further south than it might otherwise have been. The low temperatures forecast for the weekend were in the mid 40s earlier this week. Tonight’s zone forecast calls for temperatures around 40 Saturday and Sunday nights.

But, if you look at the GFS modeling, it’s calling for temperatures around freezing Monday morning in Atlanta, and in the upper 20s for Athens. Will we get there? The record low in Atlanta is 34 for Saturday, 31 for Sunday and 35 for Monday. The normal first freeze in Atlanta is November 10th, about three weeks away. We may not be breaking any records this weekend, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we did end up below 40 degrees. If your furnace has a pilot light, you might want to check it and/or turn it on.

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July ended up being cooler than normal for the northern and eastern parts of the US, in some cases setting records or near records for the cold weather.

In Atlanta, the average temperature of 78.1 was 1.9 degrees cooler than normal, and cooler than it was in June, when the average temperature was 79.8 degrees, or three degrees above normal. July’s colder than normal temperatures were helped out by low humidity and much colder than normal lows from the 18th through the 21st, with two record low temperatures set during that time.

Atlanta was not the only location to have a colder than normal July. In New York City, the average temperature of 72.7 was 3.8 degrees below normal, continuing a trend that began earlier in the spring. With a high temperature of 84 degrees in June and 86 in July, this was the second time New York weather failed to reach 90 degrees in June or July. The other time was in 1996.

Other cities with colder than normal temperatures in July include Chicago, whose average temperature of 71.0 degrees was 4.5 degrees colder than normal; Cincinnati, with a 70.9, 5.9 degrees colder than normal and Kansas City, Missouri, with an average of 75.4, 3.1 degrees colder than normal.

The heat did show up in much of Texas. In Houston, the average temperature of 86.7 was 3.1 degrees warmer then normal, and in Austin, the average of 89 was 4.8 degrees warmer than normal.

Rainfall in Georgia seemed to be concentrated in the western part of the state. Atlanta ended up with 5.02 inches of July rain, just slightly less than normal. However in Lawrenceville, I only received 3.48 inches, most of it on the last few days of the month. In Athens, only 1.33 inches of precipitation fell, which was 30% of normal July rainfall.
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Extremely unusual weather for mid-July has broken low temperature records around the state, with much of Georgia seeing late September like weather during what is normally the warmest stretch of the year.

On Sunday, Atlanta tied a record low of 63 degrees, set in 1967. The low in Athens of 58 beat the prior record of 62 set in 1925. In Columbus, it was 62 degrees Sunday morning, breaking the previous low of 66, set in 1987. And in Macon, a low of 58 beat the old record of 61, set in 1967.

Monday morning’s low of 61 in Atlanta tied the previous record, set in 1946. In Athens, a low of 60 degrees broke the almost 100 year low record of 61, set in 1910. In Columbus, a low of 64 also tied the previous record, set in 1946. And in Macon, a low of 61 beat the previous low of 62, set in 1987.

There’s another chance for record lows tomorrow morning before the weather starts returning to normal during the latter part of the week. A stationary front located near the Georgia-Florida border is keeping the normal summertime humidity from the Gulf coast from moving north, and the exceptionally dry air is letting daytime heat escape into the clear night skies.

The normal high for July 20th is 88 degrees, and the normal low is 70.

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