Lightning — Cobb, Georgia

2010-07-13 · near Leland, Cobb, Georgia

Event narrative

WXIA Television of Atlanta reported that two teenage girls were struck by lightning while standing under a tree adjacent to their home at the Windwood apartments, just south of Mableton. The 16-year old female died shortly after being transported from the scene to the hospital. Her 14-year old cousin died on July 21st after being hospitalized in critical condition and on a respirator since the lightning strike on the 13th.

Wider weather episode

An unusually strong cold front was pushing south through the Ohio Valle and mid-Atlantic region and into the southeast U.S. A large subtropical ridge of high pressure aloft was located across the southern plains. This resulted in an unstable north to northwest flow aloft across the southeast states. The upper support and frontal system combined with a hot, humid, unstable air mass remaining across Georgia to result in scattered to numerous afternoon and evening thunderstorms. A couple of the thunderstorms became severe and produced damaging wind gusts. All of the thunderstorms produced frequent cloud-to-ground lightning. One of these lightning strikes resulted in the second and third lightning-related deaths of the year for the Peachtree City, Georgia forecast area.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.7842, -84.5664)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 249121. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.