Flood — Rabun, Georgia

2024-09-27 · near Wiley, Rabun, Georgia

Event narrative

Although heavy rain ended across Rabun County by early afternoon, flooding continued along the Tallulah River basin, primarily impacting smaller tributaries. Streams had largely returned to their banks by evening.

Wider weather episode

Tropical Cyclone Helene began organizing over the western Caribbean on the 23rd and 24th of September before rapidly intensifying as it moved north through the eastern Gulf of Mexico on the 25th and 26th. A plume of moisture extending from the intensifying storm interacted with a slow-moving cold front to produce a band of widespread heavy rain showers and embedded scattered thunderstorms over the southern Appalachians and vicinity on the 25th and 26th, resulting in a predecessor heavy rainfall event over the mountains and portions of the foothills. Helene made landfall in the Florida Big Bend and moved quickly N/NE through Georgia before turning toward the N/NW once the remnant center reached northeast Georgia. Due to its quick movement, Helene was still a strong tropical storm when the wind field reached northeast Georgia. However, due to the track of the remnant eye right over northeast Georgia, the area was largely spared of the strongest wind gusts and heaviest rainfall bands, which primarily impacted the western Carolinas. Nevertheless, frequent wind gusts as high as 60 mph, with occasional gusts as high as 70 mph combined with saturated soils to produce numerous downed trees and damage to electrical infrastructure. Dozens of trees fell on houses, vehicles, and power lines throughout the area, with numerous power outages reported.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.8000, -83.4270)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1219194. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.