Weather - Athens Georgia
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Athens Area Weather Stations
National Weather Service Links
Seasonal Creep
Have you noticed over recent years, spring is arriving a lot earlier? It is true! Trees in Georgia are generally blooming earlier than they have historically. Data…indicate a clear trend of "seasonal creep"—where spring arrives earlier and fall arrives later.
The Risk: The danger in Georgia isn't just the early bloom; it's the Late Spring Freeze. Because the average temperature is higher, trees "wake up" during a warm week in February, but the atmospheric variability still brings a frost in late March, which can kill the peach crop or ruin the hydrangea blooms.
Read more from Glenn Burns on Facebook.
USA-NPN "Status of Spring" map.
Winter Weather
NWS Storm Reporting
Skywarn
Traffic
Power Outage Maps
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Hurricanes
Treetops Emit Ultraviolet Sparkles During Thunderstorms.
Researchers Just Filmed It in Nature for the First Time. These outbursts—called coronae—are typically too faint for human eyes to detect. But since they also emit light at ultraviolet wavelengths, scientists were able to use a special setup involving a UV camera to document them outside of a laboratory.
— Smithsonian magazine
Mackerel Sky
This is a beautiful shot of a Mackerel Sky! The specific clouds you're looking at are Altostratus.
These are "middle-altitude" clouds, typically found between 6,500–20,000 feet. They look like small, white or gray patches or "clumps." Unlike higher Cirrocumulus clouds (which look like tiny grains of rice), these have distinct shading and look larger, about the width of three fingers when you hold your hand at arm's length toward the sky.
They form when a large sheet of air is lifted and then cooled, breaking into these individual cells or rolls due due to different wind speeds at different altitudes.
In folklore, this is often called a Mackerel Sky because the pattern resembles the scales on a fish. Usually a sign of rain in 24-48 hours.
From Glenn Burns on Facebook.
Stratus Fractus
That striking, straight-edged formation is known as a stratus cloud (specifically a stratus fractus or a low-level altostratus bank), but the phenomenon of that perfect, sharp line is often referred to as a "Cloud Front" or a "Sharp Edge" cloud.
That perfectly straight line isn't a single cloud, but rather the boundary between two different air masses.
You are looking at a front where dry, stable air is pushing against moist air. The moisture is forced to condense exactly at that boundary, creating a "wall" of cloud.
Because you are viewing it from a distance, the flat base of the cloud layer appears as a sharp diagonal line due to the Earth's curvature and your angle of perspective. Very cool !
From Glenn Burns on Facebook.
