Metro Atlanta

===Climate===
{{Main|Climate of Atlanta}}
The Atlanta metro area has a [[humid subtropical climate]] with four [[season]]s. Summer is the longest. January daily lows average from {{convert|32|-|35|°F|°C}} north to south, and highs range from {{convert|48|-|54|°F|°C}}, but often reach well above or below this average. There is an average annual snowfall of about {{convert|2.5|in|cm}}, falling mostly from December through March, though there was snow north of the city on April 3, 1987. Snow flurries are actually common during the winter months when there is an especially deep trough in the jet stream. These events usually do not amount to more than a slight dusting and therefore go unrecognized in most weather summaries. 

Summers are long and consistently hot and humid. July mornings average {{convert|71|°F|°C}} and afternoons average {{convert|89|°F|°C}}, with slight breezes, and typically a 20–40% chance of afternoon [[thunderstorm]]s. During the summer afternoon thunderstorms, temperatures may suddenly drop to 70–77 degrees with locally heavy rainfall. Average annual rainfall is about {{convert|50.2|in|mm}}. Late winter and early spring, as well as July, are the wettest. Fall, especially October, is the driest.

From 1878 to 2011, the highest recorded temperatures at Atlanta were {{convert|105|°F|°C|1}} on three days in the extraordinarily hot July 1980, followed by {{convert|104|°F|°C}} that month and in August 2007, the hottest month ever for the area. This was broken on the last day of June 2012, when the temperature reached {{convert|106|°F|°C|1}}, during a massive [[heat wave]] that hit most of the country, with another 105 the next day tying the July record. The lowest recorded temperatures were {{convert|-6|°F|°C}} and {{convert|-8|°F|°C}} on January 20 and 21 of 1985, and {{convert|-9|°F|°C}} on February 13, 1899, during severe cold snaps that went so far south they devastated the entire [[citrus]] industry in [[central Florida]].

[[Hurricane Opal]] brought sustained [[tropical storm]] conditions to the area one night in early October 1995, uprooting hundreds of [[tree]]s and causing widespread [[power outage]]s, after soaking the area with rain for two days prior. Since 1950, some metro counties have been hit more than 20 times by tornadoes. Cobb (26) and Fulton (22) are two of the highest in the state. The [[Dunwoody tornado]] in early April 1998 was the worst [[tornado]] to have struck the area. A [[2008 Atlanta tornado|tornado struck downtown Atlanta]] in March 2008, causing a half-billion dollars in damage, one of the most expensive storms ever recorded anywhere.

The area experiences a [[winter storm]] with significant [[snow]]fall about once each year. This can be extremely irregular, with several consecutive years receiving no measurable snow. A [[blizzard]] (see: [[1993 Storm of the Century]]) caught much of the Southeast off-guard in 1993, dumping {{convert|4.5|in|cm|1}} at the Atlanta airport on March 13, and much more than that in the suburbs to the north and west, as well as in the mountains. The only other recorded winter storm of comparable severity was the [[Great Blizzard of 1899]]. The heaviest snow was in January 1940, when {{convert|8.3|in|cm|1}} buried the city during its coldest month on record. The second-heaviest was in 1983, when a very late storm dumped {{convert|7.9|in|cm|1}} on March 24. [[Ice storms]] have occurred in the area. The well-remembered 1973 ice storm was brutal, as was the storm in 1982.

The Southeastern U.S. drought of 2006–2008 began with dry weather in 2006, and left area lakes very low. The drought began to abate significantly after the [[2009 Atlanta floods]], when some areas got up to {{convert|20|in|mm|-2}} of rain in a week, with half of that falling in just 24 hours near the end of the period. The [[USGS]] calculated it to be a greater-than-[[500-year flood]].