Thunderstorm Wind — Fulton, Georgia

2011-04-04 · near Alpharetta, Fulton, Georgia

Event narrative

The Fulton County Emergency Management Director reported that several trees and power lines were down across the south end of the county from Palmetto to College Park, but a number of trees were down across the central and northern part of the county as well. Trees were down on Old National Highway/Georgia Highway 279 and also Flat Shoals Road. Several large trees also fell across the Georgia Tech campus, just north of downtown Atlanta. One large downed tree caused significant damage to two dormitories and resulted in the displacement of 32 residents. The public reported that trees and power lines were down in the central and northern part of the county in the Midtown area of Atlanta. While not occurring during this actual event, a tree, weakened by the strong winds of these thunderstorms, fell on a 22-year old male in north Atlanta at 815 am EDT the next morning. Widespread power outages were also reported throughout Atlanta and much of Fulton county following this event.

Wider weather episode

An extremely progressive and highly kinematic upper flow remained in place across the U.S. A deep, full-latitude negatively tilted trough and associated strong Pacific cold front swept through the eastern U.S. April 4th into April 5th. An intense northeast to southwest oriented squall line of thunderstorms accompanied this front. Wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph were common along this line of thunderstorms as it traversed the entire Peachtree City (WFO FFC), Georgia Weather Forecast county warning area. Nearly every county received at least one severe thunderstorm warning during this event and nearly every county experienced extensive wind damage from these thunderstorms. Two brief EF0 tornadoes also occurred with this event in Gilmer county of north central Georgia. Downed trees on homes and vehicles also caused 7 fatalities during this event, the most in any single weather event since the catastrophic floods of late September 2009. Even several hours after the storms had passed, at least 50,000 residents of north and central Georgia remained without power.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.0700, -84.3000)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 294514. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.