Strong Wind — North Fulton, Georgia

2011-04-05 · North Fulton, Georgia

Event narrative

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that a 22-year old male was killed when a large tree fell on his vehicle while driving along Tilden Street in the Howell Station neighborhood of Atlanta. The tree was weakened by severe thunderstorms the evening before. However, wind gusts of 30 to 35 mph were common in the area at the time and a wind advisory was in effect for the entire area when the fatal incident occurred.

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.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 296449. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.