Below is a look at all the warning polygons and storm reports mostly from Friday May 6th and the past couple of days. For the most part metro Atlanta and much of north Georgia and Alabama avoided a severe weather event on Friday for several reasons a Dry slot (Broad region of dry air) developed Friday the dry air prevented the updrafts from growing with any storms that developed in north Georgia and Alabama on Friday, storms along the Gulf also cut off the flow of moisture streaming north and also I believe many were praying the storms wouldn’t be bad and those prayers definitely worked. We did have most of the ingredients for severe weather in place so it could have been a active day if it wasn’t for the factors I mentioned above. There were a few severe thunderstorm warnings across far north and northwest Georgia. Dahlonega, Ringgold and Dalton all had a severe thunderstorm warning mainly due to the potential for strong wind gusts and hail. Tennessee had numerous severe storms and a few flood warnings. The severe weather threat definitely verified for the Carolinas, Virginia parts of Tennessee and Kentucky and areas along the Gulf coast. McGhee Tyson Airport had a wind gust up to 64 mph. Several trees and power lines went down across parts of East Tennessee. The bulk of the tornado warnings were in North Carolina and southern Virginia on Friday. There were some close calls for the Charlotte metro area yesterday. In Georgia the biggest problem ended up being none thunderstorm wind gusts associated with a tight pressure gradient. When we have a tight pressure gradient that is what causes the strong wind gusts. This Spring has been quite active across parts of the south and also parts of the Plains.
