The drought has continued to worsen across North Georgia over the past week. Despite some light rain across the region, we did not see any improvement in conditions and in fact, they got somewhat worse.
The level D3 extreme drought now includes a large portion of the region with all of Towns, Union, Gilmer, and Fannin Counties included and the northern sections of Dawson, Lumpkin, White, and Rabun.
A large area of level D2 Severe Drought exists south of that region with the rest of the region remaining in a level D1 Moderate Drought. The D4 exceptional drought also doubled in size to include a large portion of NW GA.
Local rainfall deficits have been growing since the first of September with the last meaningful rainfall coming back in mid-October for most of us. A few of the current rainfall deficits since September 1 are:
Gainesville- 5.23″
Blairsville- 7.34″
Dahlonega- 8.24″
Cornelia- 5.76″
Across the southeast and locally many burn bans are in effect with a Fire Warning issued for Sevier County, Tennessee today outlawing any outdoor fires. Many wildfires are still burning with one particularly large one currently burning near Natural Bridge, Virginia reaching over 2500 acres in size so far.
Related: https://s46468.p1221.sites.pressdns.com/burn-ban-continues-for-rabun-county-other-parts-of-georgia-carolina/
Unfortunately, we have at least one more weekend of dry weather ahead before we see any real rainfall. We may see some very light rain of 1/4″ or less on Friday night.
The good news is that it is looking increasingly likely we see a major pattern shift across the eastern half of the US as we move towards Thanksgiving. This will include a chance for more significant rainfall totals of 1/2-1″ on Tuesday (or more if things work out right). Behind this front, additional rain chances are looking likely going through the end of November but any details are fuzzy at best. The 10-day rainfall on both the GFS/Euro aren’t as high as we need them but they are better than they have been in quite some time.
For now, keep a lid on any planned burning, those leaves will just have to sit for a little while longer.
