The last 24 hours have brought perhaps the most significant severe weather to North Georgia since the Dunwoody tornadoes back in April, 1998.

National Weather Service officials said that a F2 tornado touched down at Simpson Road and Burbank Drive just west of the Georgia dome at 9:38 PM Friday night. The 200 yard wide twister traveled through downtown Atlanta and proceeded about six miles, until it ended at Braeburn and Josephine Roads in DeKalb County.

There was extensive damage to the Georgia Dome, where viewers of the SEC Basketball tournament were surprised when things began to sway. Additional damage was reported throughout downtown, including the CNN building and Centennial Olympic Park. Fortunately, no one was killed in the evening storm. You can read about the storm here, here and here.

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This afternoon’s thunderstorms were responsible for hail, damaging winds and even a few tornadoes to Georgia, but on the upside, they brought needed rain as well.  In advance of an approaching cold front, the storms fired up from west to east, with the worst of the storms affecting the Atlanta area between 5 and 6 PM.

Looking at the Georgia storm reports,  there were reports of damaging winds bringing down power lines and trees in west Georgia, tornado spottings in southwest Georgia and quarter inch hail.  In metro Atlanta, some minor flooding was reported in Tucker, and there were tornado warnings issued for Fulton and Gwinnett counties based on radar soundings, however no tornadoes were reported in the metro area.

The storm did bring some needed rain to the area.  As of 7:30 PM, here are some reported rain amounts:

Alpharetta: 1.18 inches
Johns Creek: 1.18 inches
Dunwoody: 1.21 inches
Gainesville: 1.17 inches
Lawrenceville:  0.77 inches
Dahlonega: 0.98 inches
Jonesboro: 0.36 inches
Dallas: 1.01 inches

The good news is that the heaviest rains occurred on the north side of the metro area, and should add to the runoff into lakes Lanier and Allatoona. With the cold front pushing in, any additional rainfall tonight will be light.  And, with more rain predicted for the end of the week, we might be able to make a dent in the slow refilling of the lakes.

The massive cool down predicted for the weekend, with temperatures anywhere between 20 and 30 degrees cooler than they have been, has set up a high possibility of thunderstorms, hail, and possible tornadoes for Friday afternoon, and into early Saturday morning.

In an early morning severe weather outlook, the Storm Prediction Center predicted the greatest likelihood of severe storms in most of Alabama and western Georgia, stretching north through Tennessee and Kentucky.

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A low over northern Mississippi moved eastward on Easter Sunday, bringing over 3 inches of rain to the Lawrenceville area, and reports of flooding and hail to North and middle Georgia, and several tornado reports in the Montgomery, Alabama area.

The system brought severe thunderstorm warnings to our south Easter Morning, primarily south of Columbus, and into Americus. An initial tornado watch was issued until 11 AM south of Columbus, and stretching across the Florida panhandle. At 10:35 AM, a new watch was issued covering most of South Georgia, along a line from Columbus, to Macon to Savannah, then south to Brunswick, and back west along the Florida panhandle. This watch was in effect until 6 PM.

At 12:45 PM, the Weather Service added a new watch which includes metro Atlanta and Gwinnett County, also until 6PM. The watch area covered Hall, Barrow, and Walton Counties, west back through most of Alabama.

As of 4:30 PM, a number of severe thunderstorm warnings were issued, mostly to the north and west of Gwinnett, including in Cobb, Cherokee, Dawson, Habersham, and Rabun counties. Slightly over 4 tenths of an inch of rain fell through 5:45 PM, with some lightning, but nothing severe.

At 5:45 PM, with the continued threat of severe weather as the cold front now in Alabama moving our way through the eventing, the NWS issued a new tornado watch, covering an area from Birmingham east to Athens, and from the Tennessee border south to the Florida Panhandle. This watch was in effect until 1:00 AM.

As od 7:45 PM, a line of rain and thunderstorms brought lightning and a bit of hail to our area. I recorded about 1 1/2 inches of rain between 7 and 8 PM. Several areas in middle Georgia, including Cochran, Eastman and Cordele reported flash flooding, while 1 inch hail was reported earlier in the afternoon in Jasper and Canton, in Northwest Georgia.

Rain and storms continued through about midnight, as the cold front finally overtook our area. Temperatures dropped by about 10 degrees between midnight and 2 AM, as the winds shifted to the west, and dewpoints dropped into the 40s.

Initial forecasts of highs in the upper 70s were scaled back to around 70 degrees about noontime, and even this proved to be too optimistic. Temperatures stubbornly remained at about 59 degrees throughout the day, and winds continued out of the east, a result of a wedge situation that didn’t seem to be lifting at all. These factors contributed to an overall less severe weather event in Metro Atlanta.

This post was originally published at 7:30 AM on 3/27/05, and was updated several times to reflect the progress of the storm.

Just in time for severe weather awareness week, North Georgia received its first major round of thunderstorms for the season on Monday, February 21st.

About noon, a severe thunderstorm warning was sounded for counties in northwest Georgia. By shortly after 1 PM, a severe thunderstorm was spotted in the Lilburn area, and an additional warning was issued shortly after 1:35 for Gwinnett, Walton, and Barrow counties, with storms located in Tucker and Loganville. A large area from Alabama, through 58 counties in north Georgia, and into South Carolina was put under a severe thunderstorm watch until 7PM.

A second wave of thunderstorms crossed North Gwinnett around 6:30, with hail the size of golf balls predicted from north of Duluth east to Buford and Sugar Hill. Shortly before 7PM an additional warning was issued for DeKalb and Gwinnett Counties until 7:45, again with predictions of golf ball size hail through Lilburn and Lawrenceville. As of 7:15, I was observing hail the size of peas outside my house (and hoping the hood of the truck wasn’t going to become damaged). By about 7:30 that phase of the storm had passed through the area. At 7:50, an additional warning was issued for Gwinnett until 8:15.

Due to the continuing presence of the storm, a second watch that included 67 Georgia counties, many further south than the first watch, was put into effect until 2 AM Tuesday. This map shows the size of the second watch, and radar in the area as of about 7:00 PM:

(Courtesy of the National Weather Service.)

Damage reports from the storm include 1 inch hail reported in Snellville and Grayson around 1:30 PM, 2 inch hail in Rome and Canton around 5:30 PM, and 1.75 inch hail around 7:30 PM in Winder. Although some of these reports were from the public, trained spotters reported 1.75 inch hail in Lilburn and Snellville between 7:20 and 7:50 PM.

Rain caused by the storms prompted flood warnings in northwest Georgia, and along the Etowah river near Dawsonville. By 8:45, enough rain had fallen in Gwinnett to issue a generalized flood warning for the county. Both the Big Creek in Alpharetta and the Chattahoochee near Vinings were close to flood stage on Tuesday morning.

Here we measured 1.96 inches of rain on Monday, and a total of 2.41 inches of rain for the storm which began on Sunday. The rain in the last 24 hours measures more than a third of the 6.16 inches so far this year.

This post was originally published at 1:30PM on 2/21/05, and has been updated several times to reflect current conditions.