Print

Mail

wiki links

2007 not the driest year on record for area around Atlanta

Rain fell in the city for a fourth consecutive day, ensuring that last year would not go down as the driest year on record for the drought-stricken Atlanta area.

The most arid year ever recorded for Atlanta was 1954, when only 80.77cm of rain was reported to have fallen.

Meteorologists had feared that this year would have received even less rain, predicting that showers on Sunday morning would taper off. But the rain continued long enough to raise last year's cumulative rainfall to 80.9cm.

Dry weather was forecast for yesterday.

DROUGHT

More than one-third of the entire US Southeast is in a severe drought.

The Atlanta area, with a population of 5 million, is in the middle of the affected region, which includes most of Tennessee, Alabama, North and South Carolina, as well as parts of Kentucky and Virginia.

Hopes that Atlanta would escape a record-book entry last year rose as a parade of rainstorms began the week before Christmas. Atlanta got rain on 10 out of the last 12 days.

On Saturday morning, the cumulative rainfall total for last year hit 77.47cm and an overnight soaking was on the way, fed by moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.

NO RECORD

On Sunday morning, the weather service said it did not look like enough rain would fall during the day to match the 1954 level, seeming to guarantee a new record.

But by 6:45pm on Sunday, more than 3.18cm had accumulated for the day.

Rainfall is measured at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, just south of the city.

Rain has also been unusually sparse in other Georgia cities this year, including Athens, Columbia and Macon.

However, each of those cities has seen worse years than last year, said Stephen Konarik, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

DRINKING WATER

The latest rain had only a small effect on the metropolitan area's main source of drinking water, Lake Lanier, where the receding water is exposing roads and the foundations of buildings submerged since the reservoir was created in the 1950s.

On Wednesday, the water level in the reservoir stood at an all-time low.

By 6am on Sunday, it had reporterly risen to less than 30cm.

"What's falling now won't show up until tomorrow or the next day," said Rob Holland, a spokesman for the US Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the reservoir.

"Anything that stops the level from falling is a good thing," he said. "But we'd like to get a whole lot more."

The lack of rainfall across the region has set off intense fighting between the states of Georgia, Florida and Alabama over the federal government's management of water in the area.
This story has been viewed 657 times.