jfeldman's Blog

We are headed into Thanksgiving week and I'm already fighting the urge to start my holiday decorating.  Our family tradition is that we always decorate and put up our lights the weekend AFTER Thanksgiving, but since we moved back to Georgia, it seems many of our neighbors like to get their decorations up before Thanksgiving so that visiting family and friends can enjoy them.  And as much as I'd like to follow suit, I'm a sucker for tradition, so I guess I'll wait - impatiently. 

If you are planning your Thanksgiving travel - or even when you'll head outdoors to put up holiday lights - what will the weather be like?  Monday brings a few showers in the afternoon and evening.  It should be pretty easy for most of north Georgia to pick up 1/4" of rain, although there may be enough lift in the atmosphere just to our north to squeeze out higher amounts north of Atlanta.  After that, we are facing a sunny and cooler than average week taking us through the Thanksgiving holiday.  The next chance of rain appears to arrive late Friday in the form of a few more showers.

Stay tuned...we'll keep the Thanksgiving forecast updated for you throughout the week.

The fall color really seems to have popped in North Georgia in the last week or so.  I always forget just how vibrant the color can be this far south.  Now, however, we're getting to the "clean up" phase....meaning today's breezes have put many of those colorful leaves on the ground.  It was nice while it lasted.

On  a different note, Hurricane Paloma made landfall over Cuba this evening as a major category 4 hurricane (winds 145 mph).  This is a devastating storm for Cuba, to be sure, but now that landfall has happened, it is expected to weaken very rapidly and what is left of it will settle somewhere between Cuba and the Bahamas tomorrow.  It is the strongest November hurricane for that region since 1999. 

So while it is feeling like fall again here, don't forget that hurricane season isn't over yet!

I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween!  I had the pleasure of getting into the Halloween spirit by catching "Wicked" at the Fabulous Fox Theatre.  It had been entirely too long since I've enjoyed a performance at the Fox.  I think it was probably back in the mid 90s that I saw Baryshnikov dance with the White Oak Dance Project.  Wow.  THAT was amazing.  You don't have to be a fan of ballet to be mesmerized by how that man can move his body and communicate through the art of dance. 

Tickets to "Wicked" were an early birthday gift for me.  My husband isn't exactly a fan of musical theatre.  He just can't get on board with people breaking out spontaneously into song on stage.  But even he thoroughly enjoyed this play.  I, myself, am typically skeptical of "new" musicals.  But given the subject matter (essentially the "prequel" to the Wizard of Oz and the back story of Glenda, the good witch and the wicked witch), it felt more like a throwback to older, more established musicals like "Anything Goes", "Carousel", or "Bye Bye Birdie". 

The acting was fantastic, the music was moving and entertaining.  The women's singing voices in particular gave me goose bumps.  And yes, I even shed a tear or two toward the end when the witches were separated. 

The next time "Wicked" comes to town, I highly recommend seeing it!

It is that time of year once again.  When the temperatures start to cool and football season is well underway - just two of many reminders that it is almost Fall!!  And so it is also the time of year that I declare once again my love of fall weather. 

How can you not love the break from the good old-fashioned Hotlanta humidity?  It's not too cold, it's not too hot, it's not too humid....as Goldilocks would say, "It's just right."

I've gotten a little carried away with this taste of fall (like I always do) and have already pulled out the sweaters, the jeans, the boots...basically everything I should be saving for when it is a bit cooler out.  Incidently,  Autumn officially begins at 11:44am Monday.

Alright....now let's talk now about "bonus" rain.  Yes, "bonus" is my way of saying I blew the forecast for today and we received a few showers we weren't expecting.  Those showers were really drying up across Alabama yesterday, but it appears we've had enough moisture feeding into the state to prompt some sprinkles and light rain nonetheless.  Now that that is coming to an end, however, rain chances look pretty slim for many days to come.

So as we wait patiently for a good soaking rain (or even a few "bonus" showers), we're also watching the tropics.  The next tropical depression seem imminent.  It is currently near Puerto Rico and could become Tropical Storm Kyle.  At the moment, all computer forecast models have this traveling northward into the Atlantic and staying offshore for the next 5 days.  But since it hasn't even become a tropical depression yet, it truly is way too early to know where it will go and what will happen.  So we'll keep watching...

And I'd say it is about time (although it doesn't mean much.  See below)!  Good grief...between the remnants of Fay spawning tornadoes in Georgia, the anticipation and eventual destruction of Hurricane Gustav, Tropical Storm Hanna teasing the Georgia coastline, and now Hurricane Ike bearing down on Cuba as a category 4 storm (and forecast to enter the Gulf of Mexico in a couple of days), there is truly no rest for the weary as far as tropical weather is concerned.

Historically speaking, September 10th is the peak of hurricane season.  Looking through climate records, tropical activity usually declines after that date.  But that information is about as valuable as the annual hurricane forecasts put out by Dr. Gray and company.  By that I mean, even if the activity does decline after this week, all it takes is one bad storm to hit the wrong place at the wrong time.  Take Andrew, for example.  That was a hurricane that hit in what would be considered a "quiet" year in terms of the number of storms produced.  But tell that to the folks in southern Florida.  It wasn't a "quiet" year for them when Andrew came roaring ashore.

Here's to hoping Ike doesn't  come onshore along the Gulf Coast as the same monster it is now.  At this point it is still too early to determine where that landfall will occur.  Once this storm emerges from it's trip across Cuba, we'll have better answers to the "where's it gonna go?" question. 

And a little plug.....the tropical section of our weather page has been beefed up with all sorts of goodies that are worth checking out if you want to follow Ike's progress and get the latest data and model information.

One thing is for certain: we'll be watching nervously ALL WEEK before Ike makes it's next landfall.

Maybe my memory has simply been singed by the heat and humidity, but it seems to me that this summer hasn't had too many episodes of intolerable heat and humidity in combination.  I guess that's why today's humidity was so noticeable to me.  I went for a short walk outside this afternoon with my daughter and my husband.  And it felt like you could cut the air with a knife

Looking back, we had several times in the past month and a half where, even if temperatures were high, the dewpoints were only in the 50s.  When the dewpoints are below the 60s, their impact on the comfort level outside is negligible.  Today, by contrast, saw dewpoints into the 70s!  That is more of a tropical-type airmass and it spells "HEAT INDEX".  So while temperatures climbed into the not-too-bad 80s, it felt like it was in the 90s.

This might be the first summer that I can count the times I've used the heat index on the air with one hand.  Let's hope I haven't jinxed it.  We still have August & September (& sometimes parts of October) where intense heat and humidity can still leave north Georgia sweltering!

Stay cool.  It is only summer in Atlanta as we know it.