A Rude Awakening

[kitanzi]

Last night we were apparently swept by two entirely seperate epic level thunderstorms which had me, on at least one occasion, jumping up in bed before even registering that there was a noise. (The lightning clued me in, so either there was a LOT of it around, or it was right on top of us, to be seeing the lightning at the same time the thunder woke me.)

In any case, it sounds like we were the lucky ones. Although the tornado siren for our county never went off, Atlanta apparently got hit a good one.

Locals took photos:
http://community.livejournal.com/atlanta/2772968.html

There don't appear to be any deaths and few major injuries, but it sounds like that's a freaking miracle, since among other things it hit the Georgia Dome during a quarterfinal basketball game (the game did wind up postponed, hah) and Philips Arena where the Atlanta Hawks were playing the Los Angeles Clippers.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jJef9x8MoNwhcKq4psD-GUJZwkQAD8VDL6GO0

Anyhow, ACat and I are fine and he's still asleep, in fact. There's even light breaking through the clouds outside the window, and it looks like it may yet be a lovely day. Um, at least we got rain?

Comments

[pafuts.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you guys are fine!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're okay.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

See? The CPAP does guarantee a sound sleep!

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's quite what they had in mind. *grin*

[hawklady.livejournal.com]

You were well north of the path taken by the cells with tornadic rotation, lucky you :)

Last night both of the cells with "definitely want to keep an eye on this" rotation were polite enough to pass N/NE of us as they headed SE towards Atlanta. We had barely a breeze, but one helluva light show and thunder.

Today, on the other hand, the line approaching appears to be more or less east -- towards you -- instead of southeastish. There's some rotation in the batch heading towards you today, although definitely too early to see how it'll develop.

Active warnings for GA:
http://www.weather.gov/view/prodsByState.php?state=ga&prodtype=allwarnings

The radar-viewing software I use - 21 day free trial, then $80:
http://www.grlevelx.com/
(get the level3, you likely don't have the pipe or need for level2)
http://www.grlevelx.com/grlevel3/

The cell that dropped the tornado on Atlanta reorg'd a bit after passing over the perimeter outbound and for a while looked even badder-ass than it had when it was hitting Atlanta. I've saved off the radar plots for most of last night's events, but it'll take some time before I can get around to replaying them and saving off captures.

[hawklady.livejournal.com]

It developed not-good for people up in your area.

Funnel clouds and tornado-style damage all along the path.

Funnel cloud in Canton 10 minutes ago, heading east.

Impressive SRV plot (Storm Relative Velocity - shows windspeed and direction relative to the storm's motion to better identify rotation)

Hopefully it'll be north of you. I'm weak on the geography up there.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Judging by radar imagery, the heaviest of it is just to the NE of Fulton County's top end, which explains why there's nothing going on here just now, other than occasional thunder and off/on rain. Radar imagery shows it's been moving away from us towards the east for the last 19 minutes, however, so that's a good sign.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

And the siren just sounded, so now it's touched down somewhere in the county.

[vila-resthal.livejournal.com]

From the radar map I'm looking at, one big cell just went right over Alpharetta. (3:10 PM) It looks to me like a pair of smaller cells will be over your head in about half an hour to an hour.

Everything is well to the North of us, now. Looks like worst of the storm has been floating right up HWY 85 and is now hammering Greenville.

I hope y'all are still all right.

Dan

PS: Lyn & the kids send hugs. Me too.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Weird! we haven't had more than scattered rain all afternoon. Alpharetta's not THAT big. I've been tracking it, and it looks like it's passing to the north of us. We really haven't even had wind to speak of since the siren went off.

[vila-resthal.livejournal.com]

What's weirder, that cell that passed over Alpharetta just spin southward and is drenching us right this minute.

The kids and I were taking an old matress out to the shed for disposal later. We only had time to close the shed doors before the wind kicked up and the rain started. Michelle made it inside the house nice and dry, but Marc and I got a bit damp. LOL!

And now, in no more time than it took me to type this, the rain has stopped and the sun is coming back out. I think we got about half an inch of rain in that three minutes!

Man! I love living here! :)

Dan

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Well, I HAVE seen storms where the line between where it was raining buckets and where it was bone dry was a matter of a hundred feet or so. We may just be right outside the cell. I honestly don't know. I have this urge to make a LOLcat with a little kitten staring at the sky captioned INVISIBLE TORNADO or something.

[gingicat]

I'm glad you guys are okay.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

Me too, thanks! (Really, for at that the radar maps made it look like everything was coming right at us, it was a very quiet afternoon. Just how I prefer it, under the circumstances. Even so, I put off grocery shopping until tomorrow!)