WEATHER: Temperatures back up to 70s by end of week, rain coming to relieve drought

The cold snap that brought an unexpected freeze to Northwest Georgia is fading away by the end of the week as temperatures are rising heading into the end of the week and through the weekend, but then there’s rain on the way as well.

Sunshine will dominate the forecast through midweek and temperatures will get back up into the 60s, and then will rise by Friday back up into the 70s by the weekend. But the sunshine predicted for the rest of the week will be replaced by Sunday with chances of rain, and then the forecast will turn toward rain on and off starting next Tuesday.

The forecast calls for temps to remain in the 60s and chances of rain at their highest on Nov. 18 around 60%.

Those chances of rain will bounce around through the rest of next week, with a brief clearing on Nov. 21.

Rain chances will return by the following weekend heading into Thanksgiving week.

The area needs the rain. The U.S. Drought Monitor had more than half of Northwest Georgia under abnormally dry or in moderate drought conditions, including Polk, Paulding and Haralson Counties.

However that was before the government shutdown, but since October 1 the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) which posts information about drought conditions across the US on drought.gov, has been closed and their site has gone without any updates.

The drought monitor mapping system has remained open, and their update as of Nov. 4 kept up much of the work to keep track of what is happening with conditions across the United States.

Just about every state with exception of Alaska and Kentucky are dealing with some kind of dry conditions. The most extreme of those are in disconnected spots around the country: from the Pacific Northwest in pockets in central Washington State and the mountains of Idaho, down into the deserts of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, over to South Georgia and up to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Even portions of Ohio and Indiana are experiencing severe drought amid continued high pressure fronts that have pushed away moisture and kept rain away from much of the United States during the past months.