Tropical Storm — Inland Mcintosh, Georgia

2024-09-26 to 2024-09-27 · Inland Mcintosh, Georgia

Event narrative

Strong winds associated with Helene produced widespread tree damage and power outages across the entire county. McIntosh County Emergency Management reported that 50-60 residences sustained damage due to falling trees across the entire county.

Wider weather episode

Helene first developed into a tropical storm in the northwest Caribbean Sea in the late morning of September 24, and strengthened into a hurricane near the Yucatan peninsula about 24 hours later. Helene continued to strengthen and became a major hurricane as it moved to the north-northeast across the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida in the late evening hours of September 26 as a category 4 hurricane. Once inland, Helene moved quickly northward through the state of Georgia and produced widespread significant impacts across multiple states.

The very large wind field associated with Helene produced widespread tropical storm force winds across southeast Georgia during the evening and overnight hours of September 26-27. While the peak observed wind gust was 79 mph at the Reidsville Municipal Airport (KRVJ), widespread power outages caused nearly all automated observation sites to stop reporting so it is quite likely that the strongest winds that occurred were not recorded by any observation platforms. Post-storm analysis suggests that Helene likely produced a large swath of 80+ mph wind gusts across interior southeast Georgia. Regardless, wind impacts due to Helene were significant including widespread tree damage and power outages with several counties reporting near 100 percent power outages. There was even 1 fatality associated with the wind damage as a tree fell on a camper, killing the occupant in Liberty County.

Heavy rainfall occurred across much of southeast Georgia, with the highest rainfall amounts concentrated across Chatham County where 3-6 inches of rain were recorded. Elsewhere, rainfall amounts were mostly in the 2-4 inch range and no significant flooding or flash flooding was observed.

Helene did produce modest storm surge along the southeast Georgia coast, resulting in a peak observed tide level of 2.34 ft MHHW (9.84 ft MLLW) at the Fort Pulaski National Ocean Service (NOS) tide gage.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1217256. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.