Marine Tropical Storm — Altamaha Sd To Fernandina Beach Fl Out 20nm, Atlantic South

2024-09-26 to 2024-09-27 · Altamaha Sd To Fernandina Beach Fl Out 20nm, Atlantic South

Event narrative

On 9/26 at 11:15 am, a mesonet site on Jekyll Island measured a wind gust of 44 mph. On 9/27 at 12:22 am, a mesonet station on Jekyll Island measured a wind gust of 69 mph. At 1:52 am, the site measured a wind gust of 78 mph from the SE. At 2:15 am, the ASOS KSSI on St. Simons at the McKinnon Airport measured a wind gust of 68 mph from the SE. At 3:19 am on 9/27, a WeatherStem station on Cumberland Island measured a gust of 53 mph.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Helene made landfall as a category 4 with peak winds of near 140 mph in the Florida Big

Bend just east of the Aucilla River Entrance in Taylor County, late Thursday evening September 26,

2024. Helene's main impact to southeast Georgia and northeast Florida was wind damage as it

tracked quickly north-northeast. The very powerful hurricane and the forward motion produced a

wide swath of wind damage across the forecast area with peak wind gusts 55 to 75 mph across the

eastern half of the area, and western zones up to 75 to 100 mph from the Suwannee Valley area

northward through interior southeast GA. The max wind gust of 100 mph was measured at the Alma

GA ASOS in the early morning hours of Friday September 27th. Given the strength of these winds,

widespread power outages, structure damage and downed or uprooted trees occurred across inland

southeast GA and portions of northeast FL. At least 1 tornado occurred, which was in Coffee county.

Maximum rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches were located over western half of the area.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1217532. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.