The Atlanta Contemporary Art Center is the city's home for challenging contemporary art and education geared toward working artists and collectors of art. Museums geared specifically towards children include the Fernbank Science Center and Imagine It! Atlanta's Children's Museum. The High Museum of Art is the city's major fine/visual arts venue, with a significant permanent collection and an assortment of traveling exhibitions. The Atlanta Opera, which was founded in 1979 by members of two struggling local companies, is now one of the fastest growing opera companies in the nation and garners attention from audiences around the world.
Atlanta features the world's largest aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, which officially opened to the public on November 23, 2005. The aquarium features over 100,000 specimens, including five whale sharks, in tanks holding approximately eight million gallons of water. Underground Atlanta, a historic shopping and entertainment complex is situated under the streets of downtown Atlanta. In addition Atlantic Station, a huge new urban renewal project on the northwestern edge of Midtown Atlanta, officially opened in October 2005. While not a museum per se, The Varsity is the main branch of the long-lived fast food chain, featured as the world's largest drive-in restaurant.
Just east of the city, Stone Mountain is the largest piece of exposed granite in the world. On its face are giant carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. It is also the site of laser shows in the summer. A few miles west of Atlanta on I-20 is the Six Flags Over Georgia Theme Park, which opened near the city in 1967, and was the second theme park in the Six Flags chain.
According to the Koppen classification, Atlanta has a humid, subtropical climate and features hot summers and mild winters. Summer temperatures in Atlanta can exceed 100 degrees with the average temperature ranging between 89 degrees for the high and 71 degrees for the low. January is the coldest month, and temperatures range from a high of 52 degrees to a low of 33. On an average year, the snowfall averages around two inches, and the heaviest single snow storm or on record brought in 10 inches, and was set on January 23, 1940. This warm climate makes Atlanta the ideal venue for outdoor entertainment, such as music festivals, and recreational activities as well.
Whatever your interests, Atlanta has something to offer you, which is why it is a wonderful place to live, and visit.