Grant Skinner

When we think about the worsening drought across our area, we typically think about the fact that we have not had much rain. It's not just precipitation, though, that determines if we are in a drought. Let's dive into how the drought monitor is created and why it takes so many different moving pieces.

With ongoing wildfires in Georgia, smoke has been spreading across much of the southeast. We had an air quality alert Thursday for part of our area, but let's look at what effects we will see for Friday and into the first half of the weekend.

For most of the month of April, we did not have a whole lot of rain, so severe weather was limited as well. A cold front on Wednesday, though, brought multiple stronger storms, and we had multiple storm reports. Let's look at those reports and how the storms evolved as they moved through the area.

An area of low pressure is expected to develop just offshore this weekend along a front. Just small changes, though, with the track of that low pressure system will mean changes with how much rain parts of our area see. Let's look at what possible paths we could see and what that means for us.

While we have been talking about the ongoing drought quite a bit recently, our rainfall deficit is something we have been monitoring since the end of summer last year. Let's look at the numbers for a handful of cities across the state and break down the pattern that caused this.

We finally have a good stretch of rainy days in the forecast! While the rain won't break our drought, it will certainly be beneficial. Let's look back at the last time we had this many rainy days in a row, and we'll look at how much rain we could see.

The atmosphere at the tailgate is vibrant and energetic, with many fans proudly donning their jerseys despite the warm weather. The weather, while hot, is thankfully not humid, making it a great day to celebrate their team together as fans eagerly anticipate the evening's festivities.

The latest drought monitor clearly highlights the lack of rain we have had since September of last year. Some of our northern spots are now under an exceptional drought. Will we have enough rain in our future to bring improvements to this drought?

We have seen heat advisories and multiple days over 100° recently. This has been one of the hottest starts to summer on record. Let's look at just how hot it has been, and we'll see if this trend will continue long term.

Friday has finally brought some much-needed, steady rain to the region! Let's look at what systems are bringing this rain, where some of the highest rain totals have been over the past couple of days, and where we could see some of the most rain Friday through next week.