Atlanta Weather Reports
Metro Snowstorm In Jan. 2002
From Our Last Poll
Which Forecaster Gives The Most Accurate Atlanta Weather Forecast?
40% Glenn Burns WSB-TV
28% Marcus Smith on Atlanta Weather Report
22% Ken Cook WAGA-TV
6% Paul Ossman WXIA-TV
1% Gene Norman WGCL-TV
Glenn is my fave too! I've been watching him for 12 years do the weather and he's certainly quite the figure in Atlanta media today. Not only the "chief meteorologist" at WSB but also the lottery number picker. His ability to talk about astronomy in his weather segment adds even more bonus points to this versatile personality. Me...I love forecasting in Atlanta! It's definetly not as hard as some people make it out to be. I go to school in Asheville and it's a lot harder there. So I thank you 28% who voted for me very much and you'll see me on local tv in about 10 years or so ;) Ya know, when I was growing up I used to dislike Ken Cook so much because he'd never forecast snow! But as I've grown up and learned more about the weather, he's now on of the ones I really respect in the business. I don't know him personally but he's very knowledgable about the weather and he's the only real chief meteorologist in the market so you know you're going to get the complete picture every time he presents. I don't know about Paul Ossman though. He seems like more a morning guy than the prime time "chief." He's learning though, I don't think he's all that good in knowing the weather yet. A for effort, it just falls short too much. But he seems like a nice guy. Gene Norman, one vote. More indicative of the viewership on WGCL I guess. I've talked to him before and stuff...he's alright. Sometimes it bothers me when I look at his forecast and it's the complete opposite of mine and all the others and his doesn't turn out right. Poor WGCL nothing seems to go right for them. Ok, except for David Chandley, the rest of the tv weather personalities suck. They suck as evidence by our snowstorm in January 2002, the way they handled it. And minus points go for all the "chief's" for not helping their fellow team members out when we had the winter storm warning. See when the situation is as pressing as that, you gotta be there. I stayed up long hours tracking the storm but I didn't see one "chief forecaster" on duty. Just the ones that suck and they missed the ball on the storm. Just my two cents commentary.
From A Previous Poll
Most Memorable Weather Event The Last 5 Years In Metro Atlanta
26% Hurricane Opal October 1995
25% January Ice Storm Number One 2000
23% Thundersnow Event On First Day Of Spring March 1996
16% Northside Tornadoes April 1998
7% Super Bowl Ice Storm January 2000
Atlanta Weather Records
The Appalachain Mountains, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Ocean exert an important influence on the Atlanta climate. Temperatures are moderated throughout the year. Prolonged hot weather is unusual and 100 degree heat is rare. The mountains tend to retard the southward movement of polar air masses, and Atlanta winters are rather mild. Late March is the average date of the last freezing temperature and mid-November is the average date of the first freezing temperature. Maximum thunderstorm activity occurs during July, but severe local thunderstorms occur most frequently in March, April, and May some spawning damaging tornados.
Top 10 Weather Events in Atlanta in the '90s
- #1 Blizzard of 1993 (March 1993)
- #2 Hurricane Opal (October 1995)
- #3 Metro Tornado Outbreak (February 1990)
- #4 Tropical Storm Alberto (July 1994)
- #5 Northside Tornados (April 1998)
- Palm Sunday Tornados (March 1994)
- Southside Snowstorm (January 1992)
- Blizzard of 1996 (January 1996)
- Record Heat (July 1995)
- Thundersnowstorm (March 1996)
Reliving That Summer Of '96
Last Time Atlanta Had A White Christmas...Never!
Unless you're way more than 100 years old, you've never seen a white Christmas in Atlanta. You may think you have, but you haven't.
That's straight from researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
A white Christmas has not been recorded in Atlanta since record-keeping began in 1896, says Dale Kaiser, a meteorologist with the federal lab's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center.
Don't look for snow this year, either.
Tuesday should be partly cloudy in Atlanta with a low in the mid-20s and a high in the mid-40s, said Jim Noffsinger, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Atlanta.
Noffsinger said he sees no chance for precipitation.
"We've got to keep our record going," he said.
There have been 13 "dustings" in the past, Kaiser said, meaning flurries or accumulations of less than an inch. "It's kind of a traditional definition, one inch, that's used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration," Kaiser said. "If there's not an inch, it doesn't count."
NOAA looks only at official records, which, before precipitation readings were taken at Hartsfield International Airport or its predecessors, "were made in places closer to the center of the city."
Atlanta had dustings on Christmas in 1896, 1899, 1909, 1913, 1915, 1929, 1930, 1953, 1962, 1963, 1970, 1985, 1989 and 1993.
"There may have been an inch or more in northern suburbs, but we don't measure that," Kaiser said.
In a new study of 16 major cities that included Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville, Atlanta was the only one with no "official" white Christmases.
"People may think otherwise," said Kaiser. "The notion of a white Christmas may be romantic, but the records speak for themselves."
But don't feel blue. According to Kaiser's analysis, white Christmases have been declining in the 16 cities studied across the country.
The number of cities having white Christmases per decade declined from 78 during the 1960s to 39 in the 1990s. Chicago saw the number drop from seven in the 1960s to one in the '90s; Detroit, from nine in the '60s to three in the '90s.
"I would not relate this at all to the debate over global warming," Kaiser said. "This is not intended to shed light on that, and it doesn't."
Across the South and Southwest, the odds of a white Christmas are less than 5 percent, the researchers said. Probabilities are greatest, more than 90 percent, in Maine, the upper Midwest and the Rocky Mountains.
Courtesy Of The Atlanta Journal-Constiution, Bill Hendrick, December 24, 2001
Facts To Know:
Earliest Snow In Atlanta: October 20, 1913
Earliest Measureable Snow (1 Inch) In Atlanta: November 11, 1968
Latest Snow In Atlanta: April 25, 194?
