WEATHER: Good chance for needed showers, weekend highs in the upper 80s

Northwest Georgia NEEDS the rain, and there’s an almost certain chance it’ll be arriving on Saturday as thunderstorms develop in South Alabama and are heading this way.

NWS Peachtree City is calling for a 60% chance of rain today – but with sunshine and likelihood of triple digit heat indexes around the region – with greater chances increasing overnight, and moving into the 90% territory on Saturday and chances even through Sunday, according to the forecast as of Friday morning.

Look for partly sunny skies through the rest of the daytime hours and clouds overnight otherwise, with highs getting into the upper 80s and low 90s through Saturday and Sunday. Temps will hit the low 90s to start next week, with sunshine and partly cloudy skies expected to open next week.

Slight chances of shower are expected on Tuesday and Thursday next week, but right now it’s only SLIGHT chances for the time being.

Tropical Forecast

The Pacific is still the hotbed of storm activity for the hurricane season, while the Atlantic is all quiet in comparison for 2026.

Tropical Storm Norbert is spinning away in the Eastern Pacific on Friday at 65 mph, moving west at 14 mph. Another storm system has a just a 20% chance of formation in the Central Pacific heading into the weekend and the next seven days.

The National Hurricane Center is also tracking another formation just behind Norbert with a 30% chance of formation.

Drought conditions

Much of the state remains under abnormally dry conditions in the latest update on Thursday from the U.S. Drought Monitor at the University of Nebraska.

All of Bartow, Gordon, and Paulding counties in Northwest Georgia are under abnormally dry conditions, and most of Floyd, Haralson, Polk and Walker counties also are under those conditions. Portions of Chattooga County and Whitfield County are also being impacted by the lack of rainfall for the latter half of the summer months and heat waves that have kept the humidity high and the thermometer well into the 90s.

Some rain relief is forecasted for the weekend, but it may not be enough to immediately clear Northwest Georgia and the state of being under the opening intensity level for drought conditions. Swaths of the state including the Georgia mountains in the Northeast, a swath of Central Georgia and the southern Metro Atlanta area, and areas of South Georgia on the coast and the Florida line are under Moderate Drought conditions.

In comparison to where the state stood just months ago during the late winter and through spring, it is still improvement as only one small area of Elbert County and all of Hart County along the South Carolina border are the only areas with Severe Drought at the moment.