The Gilmer Airport (Gainesville) weather station has been offline since 1/11 - last Wednesday. While not always perfect, it usually serves as a reasonable proxy to what conditions are on Lake Lanier due to its elevation and proximity to the lake.

Until it resumes operation, we will be using Lawrenceville Airport's (KLZU) conditons. KLZU is about 15 miles from the lake for our graph and Jefferson/Jackson Co Airport (KJCA) for the current conditions (about 23 miles). Lawrenceville does not report current condtions in a form that we can easily process or we'd use it for both..

While there are other private weather stations close to or on the lake, they tend to have their own deficiencies, the most common being that they are wind shadowed. Weather stations at airports are in more open conditions and tend to be more reliable. Also, since we have less localized weather phenomena here because of our geography, a station 20 miles away can be reasonably useful. The exception is the dome effect in the spring which is very localized and may not be captured even by weather stations on the lake.

In the meantime, we also suggest using the LLSC's web cam which works well for SW/W/NW winds. Refresh the image to see the most recent.