We’ve seen some decent drought relief here locally across North Georgia in the past couple of weeks, but not enough to completely erase the short-term drought.
The latest from the US drought monitor shows 98% of the state is currently in a D0 (abnormally dry) drought level or higher. This is a slight increase from last week. The biggest jump from last week is the D1 area (moderate drought), which nearly doubled from 27% to 52% of the state.
Locally, the mountains are currently not under any level of drought, although areas south and especially southwest have been dry recently. The image below shows the total estimated precipitation across the southeast over the past 14 days.
Here, across Northeast Georgia, we’ve generally seen 2-3″ during that time with most of that falling in two periods around 9/25-9/28. There has been a dry area that runs roughly along I-985 and parts of the GA 400 corridor, although Gainesville proper has seen plenty.
Looking back just a bit further, the image below shows the percentage of normal precipitation over the last 30 days. As you can see, most of North Georgia is in pretty good shape, but the further south and west you go, the less rain has fallen. The area along the GA 115 corridor from Lumpkin into Habersham has only seen around 75% of normal in that time, not bad, but not enough to erase the dry struggles.
Unfortunately, we don’t have any significant relief in sight across North and Central Georgia, although much of Southeast Georgia is expected to see plentiful rainfall through late next week.
The official forecast from the WPC is below and shows the forecast rain through early next Thursday.
In general, southeast Georgia will see by far the most, with much more isolated, heavier totals across the rest of the state. The worst news is for those northwest of Atlanta, where the area is in a D1 drought and less than 1/4″ is expected over the next week.
So, while we have seen some rain, continued dry weather will keep us abnormally dry for at least the next week.
