File photo

VALDOSTA — A pair of storm fronts are expected to move through South Georgia this week, bringing a little rain that won’t make much of a dent against a long dry spell, forecasters said.

The first, weaker, cold front was expected to move through the region Sunday night and Monday, with a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms Monday, said Jeff Fournier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tallahassee, Fla., office.

He expected Valdosta to get about a third of an inch of rain from the front. In April, the city received a total of 1.94 inches of rain — far short of the normal 4.87 inches for that month, said Frank Strait, senior meteorologist for the private forecasting firm AccuWeather.

“That’s only about a quarter of normal and April is already the driest month of the year,” he said.

In February, Valdosta’s 1.2 inches of rain was well below the norm of 4.16 inches, he said. In January, the region was comparatively wet with more than nine inches of rain, but six inches of that fell on Jan. 21-22 as part of a severe storm system that spawned tornadoes leaving 15 people dead in South Georgia, Strait said.

Since March 1 — “the start of ‘meteorological spring,’ ” Fournier said — Valdosta has seen only 3.14 inches of rain, more than 4.5 inches below normal, he said.

Monday’s cold front is “cold” in name only; the weak front will only shave a few degrees off already above-average daytime highs, Fournier said. Monday’s high is expected to be about 83. Highs should be back in the low 90s by Wednesday, according to the weather service’s forecast.

Thursday, a “more substantial” cold front is expected to push through the region, bringing more widespread storms and the possibility of isolated tornadoes, Strait said.

“(The tornado threat) is something we’ll have to pay attention to,” he said.

The second storm front could bring in another quarter-inch of rain to Valdosta, Fournier said. The Thursday storm system will cut daytime highs to the lower 70s during the weekend, Strait said.

Terry Richards is senior reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times.