WEATHER: Much needed rain for next several days across Northwest Georgia

Praise be! Some rain has finally returned.

Northwest Georgia is getting some scattered showers this afternoon and evening across the region, and more rain is expected for the coming days with at least a 50 to 60% chance of showers and thunderstorms through next week.

NWS Peachtree City forecasts include rain through the remainder of the week (keep an eye on the forecast for the remainder of graduation ceremonies in store for the latter half of the week to end the school year,) along with showers and thunderstorms expected over Memorial Day weekend.

The forecast includes upward of an 80% chance of showers and thunderstorms for Memorial Day, and remain in the forecast for the opening of summer break next week as well. Chances for wet weather extend through the forthcoming remainder of May and moving into the opening days of June, though currently chances for showers and thunderstorms are down into the 20 to 30% range for the extended forecast next week and into the opening of June.

Expect highs to stick into the upper 70s and low 80s through the remainder of the month with the shift in the forecast, with hopes that rainfall will help make up for the deficit that has caused drought conditions to persist across the state and the entire Southeast.

NWS Peachtree City’s rainfall scorecard puts metro areas around the state still well below the average rainfall expected. Metro Atlanta, for instance, only got 2.08 inches of rain during the month of April overall, more than an inch below the 30-year average recorded from 1991 to 2020.

The region remains under severe and extreme drought conditions (depending on county and specific location) along with most of the state. A swath of South Georgia and the coastal regions remain under Exceptional Drought conditions, the highest level recorded by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Whether current rounds of rainfall will help relieve those conditions is still up in the air.

Drought conditions will also be impacted by the formation of a new El Nino system developing in the Pacific, with an 82% chance of seeing a emergence of the weather pattern that will impact the Northern Hemisphere in the coming months. The higher water temperatures influence weather patterns via the interaction of warm water and higher summertime temperatures in the northern hemisphere, and is expected to impact the climate through the coming winter months ahead.

What it means for Northwest Georgia?

Above average temperatures are coming, with only “equal chances” of normal rainfall amounts falling across the region during the coming months. The good news from all of this? An El Nino will significantly decrease the potential for storm development in the Atlantic Ocean through Hurricane season.

It will likely bring additional cooler than normal weather to the region later this year during the late fall and into early winter of 2027.

For now? Be happy to get some wet weather, and hope that it sticks around for more than just 30 minutes at a time.