Thunderstorm Wind — Fulton, Georgia

2011-05-26 · near Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia

Event narrative

The Fulton County Emergency Management Director and the public reported that at least a dozen trees were down across the north part of the county in the Buckhead and Sandy Springs areas. A number of roads were blocked from downed trees, especially across the northern part of the county. Two females in their 60s were killed when a large tree fell on their Mazda Miata sports car while traveling on West Paces Ferry Road at Nancy Creek Road, approximately four miles west-northwest of Buckhead. A downed tree limb on the MARTA tracks near the Arts Center Station caused delays for southbound trains. Several power lines were also down across the area with thousands of residents across the county left without power for several hours, many even into the next day. In addition, a UPS truck was set on fire when a large tree fell on the vehicle.

Wider weather episode

A deep, closed upper low was moving from the Southern Plains into the mid-south with an accompanying strong Pacific cold front. This system had been slowing moving through the Southern Plains and Midwest in the prior days and had wreaked havoc on that region in the form of many devastating tornadoes, including the EF5 Joplin, Missouri tornado of May 22nd. As this system spread east, it was weakening in the face of a long standing upper ridge across the southeast U.S. and also moving into a considerably less favorable surface environment. Nonetheless, it remained a strong upper-level system with decent dynamics. It brought the most severe weather to the Peachtree City, Georgia forecast office since the historical tornado outbreak of April 27th and 28th. There were numerous reports of golf ball and larger-sized hail across north Georgia during the afternoon of April 26th which translated mostly into a thunderstorm wind event as the system spread thunderstorm further south across central Georgia during the late evening hours.

Showers and thunderstorms continued during the overnight hours of the 26th and into the early morning hours of the 27th. By afternoon, the front had pushed into the east central and southeast part of the county warning area. With afternoon heating and increased instability, thunderstorms increased in intensity and coverage ahead of the front. Some of these once again became severe. These were confined to the southeast counties of the county warning area. Quarter to half-dollar-sized hail was the primary severe weather component of these second round storms.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.8134, -84.4000)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 314801. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.