Hail — Harris, Georgia

2011-04-15 · near Mountain Hill, Harris, Georgia

Event narrative

The public and amateur radio operators observed quarter, golf ball, and baseball-sized hail across the county from Mountain Hill to northeast of Pine Mountain Valley. The largest hail, golf ball to baseball-sized was observed near and just east of Hamilton, decreasing to east of Pine-Mountain Valley.

Wider weather episode

A deep, slow moving, negatively tiltled and highly diffluent upper trough was sweeping from the south central into the southeast U.S. during the April 15th and 16th period. A strong Pacific cold front accompanied the upper-level trough. An unseasonably warm, moist and unstable air mass was present across the southeast U.S. in advance of this weather system. An initial line of strong to severe thunderstorms began to move into northwest Georgia during the late afternoon hours of April 15th. As the line progressed further into the state, it evolved more in a large area of showers and thunderstorms with discrete supercells across especially central Georgia. These supercells produced damaging winds, hail, and three tornadoes. As the event continued into the early morning hours of the 16th, the severity decreased, but widespread rain and thunderstorms, along with isolated severe thunderstorms continued until around daybreak. In addition to the severe weather events, the prolonged and heavy rain event resulted in flash flooding along north Atlanta metropolitan area creeks and streams.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.7200, -85.0200)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 298564. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.