ATLANTA FORECAST
Today: Isolated showers continue. High: 76
Tonight: More rain. Partly cloudy. Low: 60
Tomorrow: Partly cloudy. High: 80
» For a detailed forecast, visit The Atlanta Journal-Constitution weather page.
Irma may be in another state, but more than a half million people in Georgia are still in the dark and dozens of schools are closed for another day.
Nearly 550,000 people were without power Wednesday afternoon, down from a peak of 1.5 million during the height of the storm. Most of those waiting on service to be restored are Georgia Power customers. The rest are in the state’s electrical membership cooperatives.
And while Cobb County and Marietta City schools reopened, school closings remained in effect for Atlanta Public Schools and Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett and Henry counties.
Widespread outages and storm damage also prompted colleges such as Georgia Piedmont Technical College to cancel all activities and keep all campuses closed until Thursday.
There were signs Wednesday that things were returning to normal after Irma, a devastating system that took at least two lives in metro Atlanta. Both were crushed by falling trees.
DeKalb County employees were asked to return to work. Fewer roads were blocked. And there were no more threats of flooding and gusty winds that brought down trees and power lines earlier in the week.
Wind speeds that once reached the 70s were not expected to get out of the teens on Wednesday, according to Channel 2 Action News.
“Irma is moving up through Tennessee right now,” Channel 2 meteorologist Karen Minton said. “The winds are not as strong, and we’re not getting those huge downpours anymore.”
Currently, the temperature is 71 degrees in Atlanta.
The temperature is expected to hit a high of 76, Minton said.
That’s still below the average high of 83 for this time of year, but temps are expected to increase this week.
A high of 80 is in the forecast for Thursday, and temps could reach 84 Friday, Channel 2 reported.
