Tropical Storm — Coffee, Georgia

2023-08-30 · Coffee, Georgia

Event narrative

Tropical cyclone winds and flooding rainfall impacted the county on 8/30. Most wind impacts occurred to

trees and mobile homes. At 1215, the AWOS station KDQH at the Douglas Municipal Airport measured a

wind gust of 52 mph. At 1231, the emergency management (EM) team reported a tree was blown down

onto a mobile home about 4 miles ESE of Douglas. At 1234, the EM team reported another tree was blown

down across the mobile home about 5 miles SSW of Douglas. At 1307, a public rain gauge along Peachtree

Road about 2 miles NNE of Nichols measured a storm total rainfall of 5.16 inches thus far. By 1440, this rain

gauge had measured 7.48 inches of rainfall. At 1313, a public rain gauge along Lee Avenue measured a storm

total rainfall of 4.62 inches thus far about 1 mile NNE of Douglas. At 1415, a mesonet station about 4 miles

ESE of Douglas measured a wind gust of 44 mph. At 1500, this same mesonet station measured a wind gust

of 49 mph.

Hurricane Idalia made landfall Wednesday morning August 30th around 745 AM EDT along the

Florida Big Bend near Keaton Beach as a category 3, with the inner core moving NE across the

Suwannee River Valley. The inner wind core of Idalia gradually weakened through the morning while,

heavily impacting Suwannee and Hamilton counties in NE Florida and Echols county SE Georgia as the

circulation tracked NE. Widespread tree, power line and structure damage occurred across Suwannee

and Hamilton counties, with estimated winds of 80-100 mph based on damage surveys with isolated

pockets of peak wind gusts near major hurricane strength. Outer rainbands on the eastside of Idalia

impacted all of SE Georgia and NE FL through the day, with early morning tornadoes across coastal SE

Georgia and widespread tropical cyclone wind gusts through the day causing tree damage and power

line damage at least somewhere across NE Florida and SE Georgia. Measured gusts during the peak of

the hurricane acorss the local forecast area were 60-80 mph. Flooding rainfall impacted locations in

the direct path of the weakening inner core across the Suwannee River Valley and southeast Georgia,

especially from eastern Hamilton county toward Baxley and Jesup GA. The peak rainfall amounts were

up to 5-8 inches. At least 3 tornadoes occurred in southeast GA as rainbands swept northwestward

ahead of the hurricane.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1126564. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.