GA/SC Weather Today (Sun 29 Dec)

The strong cold front that caused severe weather across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi is moving through Georgia this morning. As of 6 AM ET there is a tornado watch up across large parts of eastern Georgia, Western South Carolina, and central North Carolina, including the coast from Darien to north of Charleston …

The worst seems to have past Atlanta, and the main line is passing Athens/Macon/Albany as of 6:30am. The squall line along this strong front is expected to hold together and reach the coast around the middle of the day. Here is the forecast radar for 9am, for the weak band of showers moving south to north will be across Savannah (a town located 40 miles south of Frogmore), and the squall line at that point over Augusta and approaching Metter …

The latest High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model forecast shows the squall line reaching the coast right at noon, still a pretty strong system:

There will be gusty winds, lightning, and the potential for tornadoes (thus the watch), so keep your weather radios armed. If you are in a weaker structure like a mobile home you should always be alert to thunderstorm warnings and potential tornadoes and have a close place to seek shelter – they just don’t hold up. But if you are in a reasonably well built home you should be ok. Again, while it will get stormy for an hour or so as this thing passes, it shouldn’t be like it was out west.

As is typical of these types of frontal passages, inland areas (30-40 miles from the coast or more) will likely be worse than closer to the coast, with higher tornado potential (again, the key word here is potential). Here is what the Charleston weather service office says:

The main concern is for damaging winds in excess of 60 mph although an isolated tornado could occur (noted soundings with favorable looping hodographs), especially in the vicinity of “broken-s” signatures embedded in the main QLCS. Some small hail is also possible, but the tornado and wind threats are higher. https://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=CHS&issuedby=CHS&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1&highlight=off

FYI, QLCS is a “quasi-linear convective system”, a fancy way of saying a line of thunderstorms.

As everyone hopefully knows by now, 60mph wind gusts can knock down limbs/trees and cause some roof damage, but we get that level of wind fairly often (dozen or so times a year), and these will not be over a wide area but in isolated storm cells, so while you want to be aware of the risk, this isn’t unusual.

The front should be offshore by around sunset.