Atlanta Water Shortage

With Hanna zooming past the east coast, we can turn our eyes to the next possible rainmaker - Hurricane Ike.

Hurricane Ike is a category 3 hurricane as of this writing, and early tracking suggests it might thread the needle between Florida and Cuba and come up the west coast of Florida.

On that track, it could very easily end up bringing Georgia some much needed rain.  Alternatively, if it follows Hanna but as a larger storm, it could at least brush Georgia.

In any case, Ike is the next big system in the area - what are your thoughts?

Gustav is forecast to enter the Gulf, strengthen and then make landfall… somewhere.

Hanna is forecast to move west, possibly strengthening and hitting the east coast.

Which one might bring Atlanta the best chance for rain?

Hanna is a westward moving storm that developed further out into the Atlantic than the normal train of hurricanes that make their way into the Gulf.

Many of these hurricanes get blown north, never hitting or just skirting the coast.  The winds may not be favorable for that right now - if she hits the east coast, she will push in to the west.

If she hits anywhere within a couple hundred miles of Georgia on either side, Atlanta is likely to get significant rain from her. 

Gustav by comparison, will move into the Gulf, and then may move anywhere - west to Texas maybe or as the current forecast suggests, right into to New Orleans.

(My money is on New Orleans because of the irony - the USACE has just reminded everyone that the levees are not fully repaired and will not be until 2011, and my friends in that great city just finished rebuilding their home)

Maybe Gustav will pull east and hit Georgia and Florida. If it doesn’t pull east, Atlanta won’t get a sizable piece of this storm.

So, my money is on Hanna - where do you stand?  Gustav?  Hanna?  Both?  Neither?

We mentioned earlier that Gustav could become a category 3 hurricane before it makes landfall.  Now there’s talk that it could reach category 4 or 5 status.

Accuweather Meteorologist John Kocet says:

“There is nothing in Gustav’s path that will hinder development. There is a strong probability that it will be a Category 3 storm by the time it enters the Gulf, and it has the potential to strengthen into a Category 4 or 5 storm over the Gulf.”

The great thing about Fay is that it was a relatively quiet storm (compared to a major hurricane), but it still brought us some nice rain.  Gustav is likely to cause major destruction, making our water situation seem pretty petty in comparison (as it should).

Below are a few maps from Weather Underground showing the possible path of the storm.  The five-day forecast shows it aiming directly for New Orleans, though the computer models are still quite varied in their predictions.

This will certainly be a storm to keep an eye on, as it could have a major impact on a lot of lives.

The latest computer models are showing that Tropical Storm Fay could hit the Florida panhandle and travel north into Georgia during the middle of next week.

We’ve said for a while that what Lake Lanier needs is a tropical storm to dump a ton of rain onto it.  It’s a longshot, but this could be the one.  It’s certainly worth keeping an eye on.

The Lawrenceville Weather Blog has a nice look at the current state of the drought.  From their site:

And, indeed the latest drought monitor for Georgia shows an area of extreme drought in the northeast corner of the state enlarging to the west, including portions of Gwinnett county, and virtually all of the Lake Lanier drainage basin. As of Tuesday, 8.9% of Georgia was in extreme drought, compared to 2.3% last week. 61% of the state is classified as being in a moderate drought. However, as the comparison below shows, we’re still better off than we were at this time last year. On June 12, 2007, 47% of Georgia was in extreme drought and 96.1% was in at least a moderate drought.

Hopefully we’ll get some lucky downpours over the next few weeks to help prop us up, then a slow moving tropical storm later this summer.  We can dream, can’t we?

(so sad, having to dream about tropical storms…)