ATLANTA — This week's rain couldn't have come at a much more needed time.
In Thursday's latest release of the U.S. Drought Monitor, moderate drought is back in the metro Atlanta area and all of northwest Georgia. This includes Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Clayton, and the rest of the surrounding metro area.
Notice that this does not include East Georgia. Areas east of I-85 had a modest rainfall in an event last Wednesday evening.
This is based on data from Tuesday morning, November 12, and does not include this week's rain.
Last week, there were only a few areas in west and northwest Georgia in D1 Drought Conditions.
Rainfall amounts from this Wednesday through Thursday morning were essentially between 1/2" and 1" in the metro Atlanta area. Locally higher amounts up to 2" were estimated by radar in northwest Georgia near Floyd and Polk counties. This is radar-estimated data and is not actual rain gauge observations.
Since Wednesday afternoon, just over 1" was recorded at the weather station at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. This was our largest rain event since Helen on September 26. Outside of this event and Helene, this fall has been abnormally dry in north Georgia, with little to no rain.