Finally... something in the weather to talk about. Generally, I hate summer weather. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the sunny days, going swimming, working in the yard (ok... not so much), and all the things that you do in the summer. But those sunny skies mean there is no weather to discuss, no clouds, no weather, means nothing to talk about. So for me, it's the really boring time of year for weather. But we're now slowly slipping toward my favorite time of the year... winter. :-) So we're officially in the Fall season as of Sunday (even though meteorological Fall began on September 1) and the air is gradually beginning to cool down as we wind down the month of September. We started the month with an average high/low of 84/64 degrees, but as we end the month, those temperatures drop to 76/55 degrees.
Many of us ended a long dry spell on Saturday when the front pushed through and it left me with 1.56" of rain. We're still below normal for the month, but our yearly total is still pretty impressive, with a total rainfall amount of 50.54" so far (EDIT: After the rain yesterday, I'm now up to 51.56" so far this year) . To put that in perspective, here are our yearly totals (for the entire year) for the last several years:
2012 - 44.16"
2011 - 50.27"
2010 - 49.22"
2009 - 73.15"(11.29" in Sept)
So you can see, we're doing pretty good for rainfall so far this year and have already surpassed the totals for each of the last three years, and we still have 3 months to go. You can view these numbers in my NOAA climate Reports here: http://www.daculaweather.com/4_dacula_noaa.php
Looking at the drought maps, you can also see that Georgia is completely drought free right now, lets hope that trend continues.
To help in continuing that trend, we will have several systems bringing us a week of off and on rains and cool temperatures. The National Weather Service had this to say in their afternoon Area forecast Discussion (AFD):
"AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PEACHTREE CITY GA
337 PM EDT MON SEP 23 2013
.SHORT TERM /TONIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT/...
CLOUDY AND GENERALLY WET CONDITIONS RETURN TO THE AREA THROUGH THE SHORT TERM. MODELS IN GOOD AGREEMENT WITH SHOWING SURFACE HIGH SLIDING DOWN THE APPALACHIANS TODAY... WITH ANY PRECIP CONCERNS THE RESULT OF ISENTROPIC UPGLIDE INTERACTING WITH THE WEDGE WITH THE ADVECTION OF MOISTURE INTO THE REGION. HAVE INCREASED POPS ACROSS THE FAR SOUTHERN TIER OF COUNTIES FOR THIS AFTERNOON AS A RESULT OF THE LIGHT PRECIP ACTIVITY ALREADY OCCURRING. MODELS SUGGEST THAT THESE LIGHT RETURNS SHOULD DIMINISH SOMEWHAT INTO THE OVERNIGHT PERIOD BEFORE RAMPING BACK UP TUESDAY AS LOW APPROACHES THE REGION.
HAVE OPTED TO CONTINUE SLIGHT CHANCE TO CHANCE POPS... ESPECIALLY
ACROSS WESTERN GEORGIA TO ACCOUNT FOR THE OVERNIGHT OVERRUNNING MOISTURE.
FOR TUESDAY... AS WEDGE DOMINATES THE REGION... HAVE CONTINUED WITH CLOUDY CONDITIONS WITH SLIGHT CHANCE TO CHANCE POPS THROUGH THE DAY.
WITH SOME INSTABILITY... ESPECIALLY ALONG THE PERIPHERY OF THE
WEDGE... HAVE MENTIONED SLIGHT CHANCE THUNDERSTORMS... BUT ON THE
WHOLE... DO NOT EXPECT MUCH IN THE WAY OF THUNDER ACTIVITY WITH THE WEDGE STABILIZING THE AREA.
THE NORTHERN GULF SURFACE LOW LOSES ITS DEFINITION AS IT GETS SWEPT INTO SHORTWAVE TROUGH LATE TUESDAY. MOISTURE CONTINUES TO INCREASE ACROSS THE AREA THROUGH THE DAY TUESDAY...WITH BEST POPS AND QPF LATE TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING. THROUGH THE SHORT TERM... EXPECT WIDESPREAD 0.5 INCHES OF RAINFALL NORTH OF A COLUMBUS TO GAINESVILLE LINE... AND 0.75-1.00 INCHES NORTH OF A CEDARTOWN TO BLAIRSVILLE LINE. OUTSIDE OF THIS AREA... RAINFALL SHOULD GENERALLY BE LESS THAN 0.5 INCHES."
So cloudy, cool and damp is the forecast for a few days. There will definitely be a feeling of fall in the air!
I had nothing to do on a rainy Saturday except watch football games, so I decided to create a few web pages. Well, about 80 or so pages but who's counting. :-)
The two main pages are for the NWS Southern Region and the NWS Central Region. These pages show the most current weather image from each forecast office in the region. If you hover over the image, you can see the full size version. There are also links for AFD's, HWO's, Radar, MesoAnalysis, and Soundings, as well as a link to each forecast office. I'm almost done with the Southern Region except for Oklahoma (it will be done tonight), but I still have to add all the extra links for the Central Region (another 40-50 pages...). It's been very interesting being able to browse through the different offices and seeing what the weather is like in that part of the county. These can only be viewed in a modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, IE9) since the popup images are all CSS code, no Java or Javascript required!)
Please give these a try and let me know what you think!
Southern Region - http://www.daculaweather.com/4_southern_region_weather.php
Central Region - http://www.daculaweather.com/4_midwest_weather.php
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