Storms Move Through Stephens Co.

Skies are calmer this morning after severe weather pounded Stephens County and northeast Georgia Tuesday.

The first storm moved through during the 1 p.m. hour on Tuesday.

No major damage was reported during that storm.

Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley said that there were some trees down, but nothing more than that during the afternoon.

The second storm moved through during the early evening hours and brought very ominous clouds along with heavy rain and strong winds.

The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center is not reporting any tornado touchdowns.

However, very ominous clouds were seen all over the county, especially along Big A Road.

Greenville-Spartanburg National Weather Service Meteorologist Patrick Moore said the line of storms Tuesday evening was a somewhat unusual weather pattern for our area this time of year with some unusual cloud formations.

“When the atmosphere is really humid, at the leading edge of one of these squall lines, there will be really ominous looking cloud formations,” said Moore. “That happens when you have cooler outflow underneath a thunderstorm rapidly lifting up the humid air.”

Moore said in the Southeast this time of year, we normally see late afternoon pop up thunderstorms, but the weather system last night that brought the high winds and blinding rain actually originated in Minnesota.

He said those types of storms are not common in the Southeast, occurring about once every two or three years.

The evening storm brought down numerous trees and a couple of hundred people were without power for a time because of the storm.

As far as rain, the storms dumped 1.05 inches in all over downtown Toccoa.