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Drip, Drip, Hooray! Rain Hits Atlanta

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By MIKE STOBBE, The Associated Press

Published: December 31, 2007

ATLANTA - Rain fell in the city for a fourth consecutive day Sunday, assuring that 2007 would not go down as the driest year on record for the drought-stricken Atlanta area.

The most-arid year ever recorded for Atlanta was 1954, when only 31.80 inches of rain fell.

Meteorologists had feared this year would have even less rain, predicting that showers on Sunday morning would taper off. But the rain continued long enough to raise the 2007 cumulative rainfall to 31.85 inches.
Dry weather was forecast for today.

The latest rain had only a small effect on the metropolitan area's main source of drinking water, Lake Lanier, where the receding water is exposing roads and the foundations of buildings submerged since the reservoir was created in the 1950s.

The water level in the reservoir stood at an all-time low of 1,050.79 feet on Wednesday, and by 6 a.m. Sunday it had risen less than a foot, to 1,051.05 feet.

"What's falling now won't show up until tomorrow or the next day," said Rob Holland, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the reservoir.

"Anything that stops the level from falling is a good thing," he added. "But we'd like to get a whole lot more."

The lack of rainfall across the region has set off intense fighting between Georgia, Florida and Alabama over the federal government's management of water in the region.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has asked the federal government to release less water from its reservoirs, such as Lanier, but Alabama and Florida are concerned about how that would affect their supplies.

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