Two months of surplus rainfall help boost Lanier's levels

By Mike Morris

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

This week’s heavy downpours have boosted the level of Lake Lanier and pushed Atlanta’s rainfall total for January into surplus territory for the second straight month after eight consecutive months of below-average rain.

Enlarge photo

Bob Andres, bandres@ajc.com Heavy rains in the last few months have boosted Lake Lanier's level and given the region a rain surplus for January.

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Atlanta’s official rain gauge at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport recorded 4.88 inches of rain through early Thursday, a surplus for the month thus far of 1.6 inches. Normal total rainfall for January in Atlanta is 4.2 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

That surplus comes on the heels of a slightly wetter-than-normal December, when the 4.43 inches of rain surpassed the 3.9 inches that is normal.

Last year started off abnormally dry, with 2.63 inches of January rain, but February’s 4.25 inches was only .52 inch below normal. Last March, Atlanta picked up a whopping 9.06 inches of rain, nearly doubling the normal mark of 4.81 inches.

But then, the next eight months saw abnormally low rainfall, with the driest month being August, when a scant 1.55 inches of rain was measured at the airport. That August total was only 39 percent of the normal rainfall for the month.

Atlanta ended 2011 with 39.34 inches of rain, a deficit of just over 10 inches and the lowest rainfall total since the drought year of 2007, when 31.85 inches of rain was recorded.

The healthy rainfall totals over the past two months have helped Lake Lanier’s level rebound more than four feet since late November.

Lanier’s level on Thursday of 1,062.11 feet above sea level was up more than a foot from this time last week, and was 4.18 feet above last year’s lowest point of 1,057.93 feet, measured on Nov. 26.

Full pool for Lanier, metro Atlanta’s largest source of drinking water, is 1,071 feet, and the lowest point on record is 1,050.75 feet on Dec. 28, 2007.