Alert archive / Georgia / Severe Thunderstorm Warnings in 1997

Severe Thunderstorm Warning 205, NWS Atlanta, GA

May 2, 1997Gilmer County, Pickens County, Georgia

NWS Atlanta, GA issued this severe thunderstorm warning at May 2, 1997, 10:49 PM EDT for Gilmer County, Pickens County, Georgia. It was in force for 41 min. 3 reports came from inside the area while it was in force.

The area

The counties it named, with what was reported inside it.

The facts

Issued: May 2, 1997, 10:49 PM EDT (02:49 UTC)
Expired: May 2, 1997, 11:30 PM EDT
In force: 41 min
Issued by: NWS Atlanta, GA
Area: Whole counties

Counties Gilmer County, GA, Pickens County, GA

The radar

The Atlanta radar (KFFC), 135 km from the middle of the area, began a volume at 02:52 UTC, the scan nearest the moment this went out.

Open the radar archive at this moment

The archived warnings, watches and discussions in force at that minute are drawn over the scan, this one among them.

What was reported inside it

Time	Report	Where	Remark
May 2, 10:55 PM EDT	Hail 0.75	Ellijay, GA
May 2, 10:55 PM EDT	Thunderstorm Wind	Ellijay, GA	Several trees were knocked down and power lines were snapped in Ellijay.
May 2, 11:10 PM EDT	Hail 1	Ellijay, GA	Dime to quarter sized hail fell between Ellijay and Talking Rock.

NCEI Storm Data entries that began inside the alert's area while it was in force. Before 2003 the local storm report archive is thin, so this is the record of what happened rather than what was phoned in.

The watch it was issued in

The SPC watch in force over the same counties when this warning went out.

Issued	Product	Office	Lasted
May 2, 9:00 PM EDT	Tornado Watch	SPC	6 hr

The nearest sounding before it

Peachtre/Fal Fld, GA (KFFC), launched 00:00Z, 2.8 hours before the alert went out and 134 km from the middle of its area. This is the routine balloon launch nearest before it, the air the forecaster had in hand, not a measurement taken for the alert.

Skew-T log-p

Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed.

Hodograph

The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km.

Mixed-layer CAPE: 888 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN: -5 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL: 1099 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear: 51 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity: 120 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity: 242 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter: 1.0
Supercell composite: 5.1

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The text

The text of this product is not in the archive. The NWS text archive before 2002 is incomplete.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before this severe thunderstorm warning went out, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

In the hours before

Special weather statement, May 2, 5:15 PM EDT, 5 hours 34 minutes before

GAZ001>009-011>016-019>025-027-030>039-041>062-066>076-078>086-
091>098-103>113-031200-

NORTH AND CENTRAL GEORGIA THUNDERSTORM OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PEACHTREE CITY GA
515 PM EDT FRI MAY 2 1997

THERE IS A SLIGHT RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS FOR NORTH AND CENTRAL
GEORGIA TONIGHT AND EARLY SATURDAY.

A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OVER THE CENTRAL U.S. IS EXPECTED TO
MOVE EAST...PULLING A COLD FRONT ACROSS GEORGIA LATE TONIGHT AND
SATURDAY.

THUNDERSTORMS DEVELOPING ALONG AND AHEAD OF THE FRONT WILL MOVE
EAST...AFFECTING EXTREME NORTHWEST GEORGIA EARLY THIS EVENING THEN
SPREAD ACROSS THE REST OF NORTH AND AND CENTRAL GEORGIA LATER
TONIGHT. SOME OF THESE STORMS MAY BE SEVERE...PRODUCING DAMAGING WINDS
AND LARGE HAIL. ISLOLATED TORNADOES ARE ALSO POSSIBLE.

SPOTTERS GROUPS IN NORTH GEORGIA SHOULD ACTIVATE THEIR NETWORK AROUND
8 PM THIS EVENING. SPOTTER GROUPS AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL
IN CENTRAL GEORGIA SHOULD MONITOR WEATHER DEVELOPEMENTS AND BE READY
FOR POSSIBLE ACTIVATION AFTER MIDNIGHT.

The office that day

Everything else NWS Atlanta, GA issued on the same UTC day.

Issued	Product	Office	Counties	Lasted
May 2, 8:08 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Chattooga	37 min
May 2, 8:26 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Murray	34 min
May 2, 8:42 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Fannin, Gilmer	48 min
May 2, 8:44 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Murray, Whitfield	46 min
May 2, 8:44 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Walker	46 min
May 2, 8:56 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Gordon	34 min
May 2, 9:09 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Cobb	21 min
May 2, 9:35 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Gilmer, Murray	25 min
May 2, 9:38 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Chattooga, Walker	52 min
May 2, 9:38 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Dade	52 min
May 2, 10:02 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Catoosa, Whitfield	28 min
May 2, 10:13 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Floyd	32 min
May 2, 10:15 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Bartow, Gordon	45 min
May 2, 10:34 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Murray	26 min
May 2, 11:08 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Dawson, Fannin, Lumpkin	37 min
May 2, 11:19 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Union	41 min
May 2, 11:30 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Towns, White	30 min
May 3, 1:10 AM EDT	Flash Flood Warning	FFC	Gordon, Murray, Walker, Whitfield	3 hr
May 3, 1:10 AM EDT	Flash Flood Warning	FFC	Chattooga, Floyd	3 hr
May 3, 1:10 AM EDT	Flash Flood Warning	FFC	Gilmer, Pickens	3 hr
May 3, 1:30 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Chattooga	45 min
May 3, 1:51 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Floyd	39 min
May 3, 2:21 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Bartow, Gordon	39 min
May 3, 2:28 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Polk	32 min
May 3, 2:33 AM EDT	Tornado Warning	FFC	Polk	42 min
May 3, 2:42 AM EDT	Tornado Warning	FFC	Bartow, Floyd	33 min
May 3, 3:15 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Cherokee	30 min
May 3, 3:29 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Dawson, Forsyth	31 min
May 3, 5:05 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Haralson, Polk	40 min
May 3, 6:08 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Cobb, Paulding	37 min
May 3, 6:32 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	DeKalb, Fulton	28 min
May 3, 6:55 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	DeKalb, Gwinnett	35 min
May 3, 7:12 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Clayton, Henry	33 min
May 3, 7:12 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Rockdale	33 min
May 3, 7:18 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Newton, Walton	42 min
May 3, 7:46 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Henry, Newton, Rockdale	44 min
May 3, 8:09 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Morgan, Oconee	51 min
May 3, 8:17 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Meriwether, Pike, Spalding	43 min
May 3, 8:24 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Coweta, Troup	51 min
May 3, 8:36 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Fayette	54 min
May 3, 8:36 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Meriwether	54 min
May 3, 8:52 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Newton	53 min
May 3, 9:13 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Butts, Henry, Newton	47 min
May 3, 9:43 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Harris, Talbot	32 min
May 3, 10:09 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Jasper, Jones, Monroe	36 min
May 3, 10:32 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Crawford, Peach	38 min
May 3, 10:38 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Marion, Schley, Taylor	37 min
May 3, 10:52 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Bibb, Houston, Twiggs	53 min
May 3, 11:12 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Houston	33 min
May 3, 11:36 AM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Johnson, Washington	39 min
May 3, 12:31 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Dooly	29 min
May 3, 2:08 PM EDT	Severe Thunderstorm Warning	FFC	Toombs	37 min

Nearby

Severe Thunderstorm Warnings in Georgia, 1997 Every severe thunderstorm warning in 1997

Sources

The product and its follow-ups from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service and Storm Prediction Center text; verification from NCEI's Storm Data; the sounding from the Mesonet's radiosonde archive; radar from the NEXRAD Level II archive.