UPDATE: Tornado Warning ends in Upson County, Ga.

[00:00:00]storm as it tracks towards the northeast. So, this is southern Upson County. Bri, let's go a slightly wider view. I want to show uh the folks up into Thomas where this storm is relative to them and the warning. So, Thomas, of course, the big population center in central Upson County. The storm is about 15 miles to the south and it's tracking to the north and east. So, if you're watching in Thomas, you're not in the warning area. We'll watch it very carefully, but it's going to pass looks like well south of Thomas as it tracks towards the northeast which is going to take it here through southern county. Of course in Thomston we have very heavy rain and strong wind gust moving in right now. The potential for damaging straight line winds there in Thomas and Upson County, but the rotation is farther to the south and will be impacting the southern part of Upson County. So a couple things we could do here. We come in very close into southern county, Brian. We can get some of the the neighborhoods and and the neighborhood roads just to do a better job of of kind of fine-tuning where it is. So there's Salem, the southern tip of Upson County. There's Logtown Road, there's Bird Song Road, Logging Road, Wilmont Road, Hollis Road. So if you live in this area, if you've got friends or family that does, these are the areas there where if you're there, you need to seek shelter. If you've got friends or family in this southern tip of Upson County, give them a call and let them know about this tornado threat that we're tracking now live on channel 2 and of course streaming. So this is the area. There's a state highway 19 in southern county and the tornado threat is approaching these communities. It is still a little bit towards the southwest. So we've got this rotation here. It's a little broader than it was earlier. And what we're looking at here with this, it's called correlation coefficient. We look for a lofted debris signature and haven't seen that. But when a tornado touches down, it will take debris, leaves, branches, building materials, and then loft them into the atmosphere, and that can be detected on radar. Let's go back a couple of frames, Brian, and see if we had that. Go back one more there. Let's uh compare that to the velocity at that time. This was at 716.

[00:02:15]It's a little display. So, uh, it's not a clear indication of of a radar touchdown, of a tornado touchdown on radar, but it's something we're watching carefully for, uh, good confirmation.

[00:02:25]You want that rotation that meteorologist Brian Monahan highlighted here with the Telustrator to be located in the same spot where you have the lower values on this. So, not likely to be lofted debris here, but it's one of the tools that we continue to check. So, we've got this rotation here approaching southern Upson County, the potential for some tornado touchdowns. And then farther to the north, we've got some strong wind gusts, mainly straight line wind. So, here it is tracking towards the northeast now into Salem. It's 16 minutes from you. So, there's Thomas in central Upson County. We're talking south of there towards Salem. This the portion of the storm that is rotating will be arriving in about 15 minutes now as the time updates. and it goes a little bit farther out towards Roberta in 27 minutes. Let's widen the view and show the the line of storms that extends here from down into middle Georgia up through Upson. So Thomas, the big population center in Upson County, not in the tornado warning, but you have the potential for some strong straight line winds as that storm rumbles through now into Pike, Spalding County, and up into Clayton and western Henry County. this line extends very heavy rain. We've already had one to two inches of rainfall in many spots and an additional inch or so possible with these downpours. So, as these downpours move through the urban areas especially, we can get uh some flooding. And then we're watching some strong wind gusts here. No rotation in Pike County, but certainly some strong winds and gusty winds. We've had some trees down with the soggy soil and the strong winds across the metro area already. And unfortunately, I expect we're going to get more of that.

[00:04:03]What Brian's highlighting here is the area where we've got those strongest winds. So, we've got the transition from winds blowing away from and towards the radar site. Brian, keep the teleustrator here and put the reflectivity mode on.

[00:04:18]And you can see it's right there along the leading edge. So, you can pick it out here reflectivity and also in the velocity where we saw those windfields.

[00:04:25]That's the location where we've got those strongest straight line winds. No severe thunderstorm warnings across this area, but those severe thunderstorm warnings are issued when we expect wind gusts about 60 miles an hour stronger.

[00:04:38]And this could easily have 40 to 50 isolated 60 mph wind gust possibility.

[00:04:43]So you want to be uh in your safe place for the threat for falling trees, but in particular here uh approaching now the south metro. So we come in close as the radar is updating Thomas off the top of your screen. There's Highway 19. This is the southern tip of Upson County, west of Mon, Georgia, part of the channel 2 viewing area. And there's two areas of rotation, both fairly broad. This one a little more impressive, little stronger.

[00:05:07]That's the one that's triggered the current tornado warning for southern county. So for those of you watching in the path of the storm, here's a reminder for your tornado safe place, a diagram of a home. Number one, most important thing, go to the lowest level of your house. If you have a basement, that's your best choice, your number one choice. Otherwise, if you don't have a basement, ground floor, then you want to get to an interior room. Often that's a hallway or a closet, stairs. Sometimes an interior room puts more walls between you and the outside, more walls between you and a tornado. That adds some extra level of protection. And then the third thing to remember is you want to stay away from windows. Bathroom is a good choice if it's windowless. Um, and then exterior rooms, rooms with windows because of the threat of broken glass are particularly dangerous. In addition to the warnings across the area, we have a tornado watch that includes much of metro Atlanta and to the south.

[00:06:07]Currently, the tornado threat from Atlanta northward is much lower. Where the tornado threat is highest is as you go farther south. And of course, we've seen that with these tornado warnings we've had off and on for about the last hour. Let's come back now to Storm Tracker 2 HD and putting this into motion, the wider view. This is what's left of the storms that came through Atlanta earlier this afternoon, early evening, and knocked down some trees, moving into South Carolina and weakening some. Now, we have a second line from Atlanta to the south. And then notice back here this kind of counterclockwise rotation, this circulation. This rotation is large scale. This is not tornado. What this is is an area of low pressure that is the center of the low that once was 24 hours ago tropical storm Arthur. So the center of this storm is approaching from the west and out ahead of it where we've got just off the surface some very strong winds coming out of the west to southwest. And so with that change in wind direction uh with height that provides we call it shear directional shear it provides some rotation to these storms. So as these storms build vertically through the atmosphere and encounter strong winds at different directions with height it causes those storms to spin up. So the tornado warning until 7:45.

[00:07:29]It's not for all of county. In fact Thomas to the north you're excluded from the warning although you've got a strong storm. It's the southern part of Upson County where we've got this storm now tracking towards the north and east. So, right along this transition between the red and the and the green is where we have the strongest winds. Embedded within that, a little circulation, but outside of that damaging straight line winds, a possibility. So, here's that updated storm track. Salem in 11 minutes, Culladin in 21 minutes off towards Mucula in 28 minutes. that if it holds together Russellville right about there in 33 minutes from now the line of storms definitely will hold together.

[00:08:11]The question though is will this rotation uh stick together that long?

[00:08:16]It's very common with a tropical system and this is the remnants of a tropical system to have weak tornadoes spin up and last fairly briefly. Frankly, this rotation has been fairly persistent over the last few minutes. So we come in closer again, updated look. There's Five points. There's Carsonville and the rotation near Gerald as it tracks towards the northeast. There's highway uh say state highway 19 in Salem. This is the southern tip of Upson County, part of the channel 2 viewing area. So that's why we're staying on and we're covering uh world news to bring you this uh potential emergency uh information as this storm is tracking towards uh the northeast. So that's where it is now.

[00:09:00]It's about 8 and a half 8.4 miles the area of the storm that's rotating from Salem and it's moving now at about 35 to 40 miles an hour. Updating here near five points. The rotation is fairly broad. So you see there's a gap between the red and the green. A tornatic signature on the radar would have some powerful winds indicated by bright green and bright red but literally touching each other right next to each other. And that would be indication of some very smallcale tight rotation and this is broadened out a bit which is a sign of weakening rotation. Now it doesn't mean that the storm won't produce damaging winds obviously very heavy rain and lightning but if this trend continues then the tornado threat will diminish.

[00:09:46]Of course that's a big if and something we are are not declaring yet. The tornado threat is not over. The tornado warning is going to extend until uh 7:45 as it tracks towards the north and east.

[00:09:58]So watching this up towards Salem, extreme southern parts of Upson County and Highway 19. Back towards the west, you can see Ipsilani popular crossroads out of the worst of the storm. Although still technically under an earlier tornado warning, the threat has ended for you. Up towards Thomas, very heavy rain on top of you right now.

[00:10:19]So you see Upson County on the tornado warning on the screen and you're just getting hammered by the storm in ups in Thomas and it may feel like a tornado.

[00:10:29]It is not. We're not looking at rotating winds in this portion of the storm. But rainfall rates of nearly 5 in an hour, meaning if it rained like it is now for an hour, you'd get 4.8 inches of rain.

[00:10:42]We won't do this for an hour, but it is just absolutely torrential downpours there through Upson County and Thomas and the potential for some damaging straight line winds in the Thomas area and of course the rotating winds to the south for that tornado warning for the southern tip of Upson County. In the heart of the metro, very heavy rain as well. We've had down trees likely to see more of that. And the flood risk, the flash flood threat is going to increase as we head through the evening into the night because we had a round uh earlier today of 1 to two inches of rain and now we're getting another inch to two across the metro area and then a little more to come from the west. So, it's a cumulative effect. So, areas that have are urban areas with a lot of runoff, areas with poor drainage, lowlying areas can see quick flash flooding. In addition to that, smaller river streams and creeks. The smaller ones have less capacity to hold water and so you can see a quick rise in those and get some flash flooding. So, we're talking about, for example, Sweetwater Creek, Nancy Creek. Those are smaller and more prone to flash flooding and something we'll be watching for this evening versus say the Chattahuchi River. it has the capacity to hold so much water that it would be unlikely that we would see any flash flooding from this situation on these larger bodies of water or larger rivers.

[00:11:59]So, highlighting some of the rainfall totals here north of Eaton, northeastern parts of Putinham County, a little over two inches of rain in eastern uh parts of Gwynette and southern Hall. Some areas got over an inch of rain. You see a couple little spots of yellow over two inches as well in Cherokee County where a storm moved through and knocked down dozens of trees earlier today around midday. An inch and a half or just shy of rainfall there. So, we've got the tornado threat the southern tip of Upson County that has diminished a little bit.

[00:12:29]We've got the very heavy downpours and more coming. An additional one to two inches of rain will uh continue to bring us the risk of flooding and flash flooding. and Meteorologist Brian Monahan taking us back into this storm that we've been watching this area of rotation approach southern county. We actually have two areas that we should highlight here, Brian. Neither of them are super strong, but both of them are worth watching. So, we've got one here northwest of Salem and another to the south and west. And within this whole area, we have the potential for some damaging winds. And of course, Logtown Road, Bird Song Road, this area, bottom right corner of your screen, that's the town of Salem. is just to the north of that. And then the area of rotation that we've been tracking all along is a little bit farther to the south and west. And we've got this gap in between the red and the green, which is an indication that the rotation is not all that tight. That's a good sign, but the threat is not over. So, we're continuing to watch that as well. So, if you're on Allen Road, Lamar Road in the town of Salem, this is Pleasant Grove Road, Olive Grove, and Church Road. These are the areas that are being impacted by the worst of the storm and the potential for some tornado touchdowns within this and as it tracks off towards the northeast.

[00:13:47]So, just a reminder, tornado watch for metro Atlanta to the south until 11 p.m., but it's these southern counties in our area that are having the biggest impact now uh for the possible tornadoes. Remember, lowest level of your house, basement's your best choice.

[00:14:01]interior room away from windows where you need to go for your safest space.

[00:14:05]It's important that you get away from windows because of the threat of broken glass. Now, we come back to Storm Tracker 2 HD up towards Barnesville. So, this is Lamar County to the west. This area from Milner to west of Barnesville.

[00:14:17]Very strong straight line winds being indicated on the radar here. You see the red and the green, but it's not configured in a way that would indicate rotation. Just a very strong winds right here approaching Barnesville. So, trees down, power lines down. That's going to be one of the threats here in western parts of Lamar County over the next few minutes. Meteorologist Brian Monahan doing the storm track here as it's going to be moving into Liberty Hill in 5 minutes and Bartensville 7 minutes.

[00:14:45]Johnstonville 16 and Unionville also in about 15 16 minutes as well. The leading edge of that storm has the potential to produce some damaging winds, taking down trees, tree limbs, and power lines.

[00:14:59]Brian, you got some more information on that storm?

[00:15:01]>> Yeah, as of now, the tornado warning expected to continue or will continue for another 10 minutes or so, that will expire at 7:45. Whether we have a tornado touchdown or not, need to be in that safe place. Very heavy rainfalling, blinding tropical heavy rain, and that's already had a big impact with some significant flooding reported across parts of North Georgia. A lot of trees have come down and that's something Brad we talked about on Channel 2 Action News this morning if you're with us very early this morning that it would not take as much wind even away from storms to bring trees and power lines down because the ground is so saturated. And that is the biggest impact we're seeing from this system now as it moves across North Georgia. But we're going to stay with you for this tornado warning. I want to take a closer look, a fresh look at the velocity mode of Storm Tracker 2 HD. And again, Brad, we still have that very broad rotation convergence of the wind right now across southern Upson County, just off to the west of Salem.

[00:15:50]So, if you are in southern Upson County, south of Thomas, you still need to be in that tornado safe place for just a little while longer. At least the next 10 minutes or so, Brad, as we watch a couple of these areas of rotation that are broad. But, uh, here's a new one actually trying to spin up, tighten up a little bit in southern UPS county.

[00:16:07]>> Yeah, that's a good point there. This has tightened it up. So, we've been talking about the green and the red being separated. It's broad. It's weaker rotation, but you can see now we're seeing that tighten up a bit. So, the greens and the reds buted up against each other is an indication that the tornado threat has actually increased a little bit here over the last couple of minutes as the radar has spun around.

[00:16:27]So, from Old Miller Road to Lamar Road just south of Salem, these are the areas being impacted. Now, certainly a strong thunderstorm, the potential for damaging winds whether or not a tornado touches down, but we've got wind speeds 47 and 34 miles an hour. And this is towards and away from the radar. So, that's a good 80 mph difference uh between those two just in the span of uh just a few hundred yards frankly as this continues to track towards the south and east. I want to point this out. You see this black line here? That is the border, the southern and southeastern border of Upson County. Just to get your bearings here, this is the area that's being impacted. Extreme southern Upson County uh with the tornado warning in effect.

[00:17:15]The tornado warning actually covers a larger area of southern Upson County, south and east of Thomas. So, you're in the clear in Thomasson as far as a tornado threat with this storm, but it's here in the very southernmost tip of Upson County where we've actually seen this spin up a little bit. Brian, it' be interesting, I think, to put a a short time lapse on this and watch it as it went from broad to tightening up again.

[00:17:38]And we can look at those trends uh over the last few minutes. So, widen out the view. There you go. So, you could see just at 7:32, just five minutes ago, how broad it was and then within the last five minutes, it's really tightened up.

[00:17:50]Now, it's also just now starting to move out of Upson County, which will take it out of the channel 2 viewing area. But we're going to continue to watch this here, monitor it, and we're going to stay with you till at least until 7:45 when this tornado warning is scheduled to expire, unless it would be cancelled early. But the tornado threat has not completely come to an end in southern county, but boy is it close, right on the edge. And then you go farther to the north, Thomas and Yatesville, not a tornado threat with this. a damaging straight line wind threat and that's the case up towards Barnesville as well. But what we're going to watch is anywhere along here based on the way the atmosphere is set up with the strong winds just above the atmosphere coming out of the west to southwest. That kind of shear means we can very quickly see something spin up in this area. So what Brian's uh drawing here is the the inflow and the outflow, the convergence of this storm here. So, switch over Brian to the ve or to the reflectivity and you can see all of this green is out ahead of the main storm. So, you've got strong winds getting pulled in blowing into the storm. And where you've got this convergence here, right along the leading edge is where you can have those very strong straight line winds. And also, of course, we can have that spin up here with any of these. From Barnesville to Milner, the risk of down trees will continue. And that's up towards Orchard Hill. Let's go farther to the north into the south metro. Uh you can see around Griffin and to the west things are tapering off. To the east, not the case. And then around Locust Grove up towards Mcdana, I75 and Henry County. Very heavy rain on the interstate. I mean this section of the interstate is tough traveling on a sunny day. And when you put this kind of rain on there, it's just treacherous driving conditions. So my advice to you would be stay off the roads if you can. Here's a storm track along the leading edge of this portion of the storm in Henry County. Moving into Locust Grove in four minutes, Ola in 12. I realize it's already raining in these locations, but that's the time of arrival of the heaviest rain and the strongest winds could take down some trees. Worthville in 27, Lacier in 34 minutes with that storm. And then a little farther to the north, uh, we've well, first we'll check the winds here. That's fine. So, the stronger winds and the brighter shades of green, but what you'll notice is no red here. So this is all straight line winds in one direction. And then you go up here into South Dicab, Rockdale, northern Henry County, and central Dicab as well up towards Stone Mountain and Tucker. Very heavy rain with this and certainly some strong winds combined with a saturated soil could take down trees. And of course when trees come down, power lines come down. We had earlier we saw a report of a tree down on a home in northwest Atlanta. That was a big tree that did significant damage to the home. There was people in the house, but no injuries reported. So, good news there. But that's the type of thing that can happen even outside of a tornado. You can get a straight line wind that knocks down a tree onto a home and it can have some serious consequences. So that remains a concern in Dicab and parts of Guedet counties as well from Duth to Lawrenville to Dula.

[00:21:01]Now back towards the western part of the metro, things are tapering off. We've had a couple of rounds of intense storms today. We've had trees down in Cherokee County. Meteorologist Brian Monahan was tracking that on Channel 2 Action News at noon today. Dozens of trees down. And then back into Alabama, the low pressure center, the center of this remnant low, what was just tw 24 hours ago, tropical storm Arthur, that is just back into Alabama, moving to the east. And these tropical systems, even when they're remnants, they've got a dynamic enough um uh setup, rotation, and um that situation can lead to a brief spin- up tornado. So, we put this into motion.

[00:21:42]We've got light to moderate rain the western half of the metro and another round of strong storms in the eastern metro tracking to the east. It's making good progress. So, this is not going to last all night, but we'll be dealing with this through the evening hours.

[00:21:56]Let's go back down to the south. Brian, uh want to just dip back into southern county because we still have that active tornado warning. We see this rotation here. Uh we'll see how close this is to exiting the county because the storm is approaching Culladin and Roberta and the areas of rotation. We had this one here that's moved east now of Upson County and back here it was fairly broad and and not really rotation just kind of a kink that we were watching here and that's just about to move out of Upsson County into Culladin. It's one of these areas that is not likely producing a tornado but it's the kind of thing that could spin up. So, new tornado warning has been issued for this portion of the storm as it tracks towards the north and east. So, it does include Upson County for the next few minutes. The tornado warning, uh, Brian, what's the expiration time on this new tornado warning?

[00:22:44]>> Uh, new tornado warning is until 8:15 and again includes that very eastern part of Upson County, southeastern part of Upson.

[00:22:51]>> Yeah. So, the tornado warning that includes parts of southeastern Upson County. Uh, you said until 8:15.

[00:22:57]>> Until 8:15, right?

[00:22:57]>> 8:15. Uh but the tornado threat will end in minutes for Upson County. So that threat will not last until 8:15. Uh we're talking minutes from now. Uh 10 minutes at most, more likely 5 minutes and the rotating part of the storm will move out of Upson County. So they issued this new tornado warning for the threat that is in extreme southern southeastern Upson County and as it tracks towards the north and east. So we're looking in close here. That rotation is is uh not all that strong, but it's there. And we've seen it in a couple of spots a little bit farther to the south. That rotation a few minutes ago was a little bit stronger, but that is safely now moving away from Upson County. I would say safely, I mean for those of you that are in Upson County, it's moving away.

[00:23:44]So, we Brian's driving Storm Tracker 2 HD and as we widen out the view, you can see the more impressive rotation is here west of Roberta and that's tracking towards the north and east. So, that's the reason this new tornado warning was issued. We have a little weaker area uh just to the north, but this is the storm that has a greater concern, but this is going to be impacting the Monro area here over the next hour or so. And if you extrapolate that out, it's likely to stay near but south of Putnham, Jasper, and Butts counties, the southern extent of our viewing area here. And then the channel 2 viewing area back towards the west dips all the way down into Upson County. So that's why we're covering regular programming. Our policy here at channel 2 is when a tornado warning is in effect for any part of our area, we cover it live continuously until that threat ends. So there's the the updated look here. The uh tornado warning for this portion of the storm just northwest of Roberta, just east of Upson County.

[00:24:49]And what we're looking at here is a correlation coefficient trying to see if we could pick up a lofted debris signature. Now, we might have to wait a few minutes because takes a little time for the tornado once it touches down to get that debris thousands of feet in the atmosphere. So, it could be a lag time of five minutes or so from a tornado touchdown to the lofted debris signature. But that is uh Brian, I would say the most impressive uh signature on the radar of that rotation. So, it is bright green right next to the red. No gap in between. So, we're talking about winds blowing about 60 miles an hour towards the radar site and just 100 yards or so, if that, 25 miles an hour or so away from the radar site. So, you've got a combined difference there of about 80 miles an hour. So, this is a tight and strong rotation uh there near Beasley Road, but this has moved out of Upson County. Uh so, that's some good news there. Let me step out of the view and show you that the the secondary area of rotation we've been watching here is just about to move out of Upson County.

[00:25:54]So, that's some good news. You're in the clear for any tornado impact from this storm in Thomas and in fact just about all of Upson County uh in the in the clear for any tornado touchdowns with the exception is perhaps right here and that's going to be moving out over the next couple of minutes. So this portion of the warning that includes Upson County, this is a new tornado warning that's likely to be cancelled early because that tornado threat is coming to an end. Brian >> Brad have some new information here to pass along. Justin, in the last couple of seconds here, been in touch with the National Weather Service. Of course, they issued the warnings. We're watching Storm Tracker 2 HD radar and keeping a close eye on what's happening. Couple of things you need to know. Number one, several counties have been now taken out of the tornado watch. being trimmed back across much of metro Atlanta as that risk goes off to the east. Also, Brad, and we're going to wait for the exact counties that are added to the watch uh just to the east of this line. We've been tracking. There will be some additional counties added to the tornado watch. We'll see if that includes some of our southeastern counties down through Lake Country. But some changes here coming to the tornado watch as the threats come to an end on the western side of the of our state and the eastern side. We're watching this last line come through and the tornado risk increasing.

[00:27:06]And we'll see again just how far north that new updated tornado watch is issued. That should be any minute now, Brad.

[00:27:12]>> Yeah. So, updated tornado watch coming.

[00:27:14]Uh we've got the potential here for um damaging straight line winds in addition to the threat for of tornadoes, of course. But that tornado threat is now moving out of Upson County. So, some good news there. We'll continue to watch that, excuse [clears throat] me, as it tracks towards the north and east. And that line, you go farther north up through the south metro, that line is um is is continuing to produce some very strong straight line winds and the possibility of uh additional spin up.

[00:27:46]So, we're not seeing that at the moment, but we have that uh that potential here from east of Barnesville up towards Mcdana and into Rockdale, moving into Newton County. Damaging straight line winds a possibility. And then there's that new tornado watch that's been issued. I'm going to um switch over to our other source and uh go to the tornado watch graphic. So you can see it here. Much of metro Atlanta, at least from Atlanta to the north and west, has been dropped from the tornado watch.

[00:28:15]Also, some of the southwest metro has been dropped from the tornado watch, but it's been extended to the east. So here's the new tornado watch area. It includes Upsson Pike, Lamar, Spalding, Henry, Buts uh Jasper, and Putnham counties and down towards the Mon area to the south and east. So, this is the new uh tornado watch that's been issued for uh the parts of the southeast metro and down into middle Georgia. Uh that will continue. Uh what's the expiration time in this new watch, Brian?

[00:28:47]>> That's 11 pm. So, just an extension, but the time remains the same as the watch we've been telling you about all afternoon long.

[00:28:53]>> Very good, good news there. Um, I mean, good news that it hasn't been extended in time. So, uh, we continue with the risk of a tornado spin-ups within this line basically from the south metro down into middle Georgia as it tracks towards the east. This is the active tornado warning that we're tracking here. This storm has crossed the southern tip of Upson County and continuing to track towards the north and east. So, the tornado warning was issued uh about 10 minutes ago, this new tornado warning and include the southeastern section of Upson County, but that threat has ended for Upson County. Let's go back to the velocity mode here, Brian. We can point out where that rotation potential is.

[00:29:35]So, this is Upson County and notice the rotation potential, the threat there for any tornadoes spinning up is safely out of Upsson County. So, not just Thomas, but Yatesville and even down towards Salem, the areas that have been impacted, that tornado threat has come to an end and it will continue to move away. So, good news for those of you watching in Upson County, the tornado threat has come to an end. Um, and uh just getting word now from the National Weather Service. They're seeing what I'm showing you or telling you and that is that they are planning on soon to cancel this portion of the tornado warning which clearly that we have all straight line winds still strong winds in Upson County but the tornado threat has clearly moved east of Upson County. So we're just getting in from the National Weather Service uh is that that tornado warning in Upson County uh about to be cancelled because the threat has moved to the east. Well, we got a few more minutes until it is canceled. I want to just give you a bigger overview very briefly. So there's the new tornado watch in red includes out towards Upson or rather Eaton and uh Putnham and Jasper counties. This cluster of heavy rain that's now moving out of northeast Georgia into South Carolina. That's the cluster of storms that move through the metro area. I was tracking that on channel 2 action news at five and six in particular and knocked down so many trees, some power lines, tree on a home.

[00:30:57]Fortunately, no injuries reported.

[00:30:59]That's weakening as it moves out. This line of storms is vigorous from the east part of the metro down into middle Georgia and then back towards the west into near Birmingham and now starting to pull east of Birmingham is that area of low pressure center the center of this low. This whole system is the remnants of what once was 24 hours ago tropical storm Arthur. It lost its tropical characteristics at 11 o'clock last night in eastern Texas. But it is still an area of low pressure. It's still a dynamic weather system and it's this line of storms from the south metro down into middle and southwest Georgia right here where we have the risk of damaging winds and tornadoes spinning up. So the yellow on the map from Mon to just north of Albany, that's a severe thunderstorm warning for damaging straight line winds. And then the tornado warning that we've been tracking across that southern tip of Upson County uh for that tornado threat as that continues to track uh towards the east. So, they're working on cancellation for that. Now, I'm also getting a report uh Brian of some uh trees down in uh in Upson County. You have that?

[00:32:09]>> So, this is a a tree one mile west of Midtown in Fulton County. I'm sorry, not Upson, Fulton County. Um that's the tree that uh fell onto a home.

[00:32:20]>> Notice Chhatuka County, some new reports coming in. Uh and we'll likely, even though the storms, the heaviest rain has passed by several areas. Keep in mind we have a wind advisory that's going to go overnight into tomorrow morning.

[00:32:32]Saturated ground. So even though the worst of the storms have certainly passed by West Georgia, Brad, as that wind stays gusty overnight, we could have some additional trees come down.

[00:32:41]>> Yeah, no doubt about it. So trees down, whether it's from a tornado, a straight line wind, um is certainly um can cause the same kind of damage, right? So, we could have a tree down um and onto a home from a straight line wind can cause some uh significant damage. Um Brian, go up into the south metro and let's look at that portion of the storm as well.

[00:33:03]Not seeing any rotation there, but to your point, damaging straight line winds potentially from uh east of Mcdana and Henry County to Locust Grove and then back into Jackson. Brian.

[00:33:14]>> Yeah, keeping a close eye on that heavy rain right now and and the gusty wind, the strong wind, very strong wind just above the ground and some of the heaviest downpours. That wind translates to the ground. It's essentially brought down to the ground. So, let's take a look at some of the wind speeds here.

[00:33:27]This is above the ground 35 miles per hour, 30 mph over parts of Rockdale County getting down into Henry County.

[00:33:33]Some wind speeds over and just to the north of Mcdana just a bit above the ground. This is about 1500 feet above the ground on Storm Tracker 2 HD. up to about 35 mph. So basically what happens in these heaviest downpours is these strong lines and this strong line moves across the east metro and through the southside right now it can bring down those very strong wind gusts. And again, we were talking about this all morning long with the wind uh 30 35 miles per hour away from the strongest storms, but they can be locally higher winds as that comes down to the surface and interacts with the ground that's saturated from several inches of rain in parts of our area. 30 35 mile per hour wind is enough to bring down trees and we've seen Brad unfortunately quite a bit of that so far this afternoon and we're not done with that threat yet.

[00:34:18]>> No, we aren't. In fact, earlier on at Channel 2 Action News at uh five or six, I think it was at 5:00 I was showing those wind speeds here in the South Metro that were between uh 50 and 60 miles an hour. And that's uh where the radar beam was less than a,000 ft above the ground. So that's indicative or very close estimate to the type of wind gust you could have down at the ground. A 40 mph wind gust with a saturated soil can topple some trees or take down branches and weaken trees. 40 mph winds don't typically cause a lot of damage, but in this situation because the soil is so wet, it could topple a few more trees that are just kind of on the edge, so to speak. So, starting to see improving conditions in all but east dicab inside the perimeter. Improving conditions south dicab south of I20. We've got some moderate rain, but the storm threat has moved out. eastern Rockdale moving into western Newton counties. And then we're going to watch here for the potential for those damaging straight line winds.

[00:35:12]And and as we've been talking about really the potential for uh a tornado to spin up, we've been watching that and looking for little notches in the reflectivity and and it draws our attention to the areas where we could have some uh some velocity spin up. So moving into Jackson and But County just a minute from now, that's where we have already rain of course, but that's the leading edge of the portion of the storm with the most intense rain and also the potential for some uh down trees and then moves into Indian Springs in 5 minutes, FVilla in 8, Lacier in 14 as it moves across southern Henry County and into Prospect in 22 minutes. So, that storm continues to track towards the east. And uh good news, uh the tornado warning in southeastern Upson County has been cancelled. Let's go down there and show that. So, here's Upson County. The severe threat has moved to the east of Upson. As Brian and I showed you, the tornado threat actually ended a few minutes ago, but want to stay on with you as long as we have an active uh tornado warning, which we no longer do.

[00:36:12]So, no tornado warnings in effect for the Channel 2 viewing area. The threat not completely over as we head through the evening. We're going to continue to watch this line of storms from the south metro moving towards the east out towards Lake Country and back towards Athens. And so remember the tornado watch remains in effect for the south metro. It includes Henry County, Spalding, Pike, Upson, and to the east, Butts, Jasper, and Putnham counties under this tornado watch until 11 p.m.

[00:36:43]So, as this line of storms move to the east, it's in this watch area, additional tornado warnings may spin up.

[00:36:50]So, we're going to go back to regular programming now that there is no longer an active tornado warning in our area.

[00:36:55]But Brian and I are here and we'll jump on in an instant if a tornado warning is issued and we'll have updates periodically through this evening either way.