Does Tornadoes warnings in the Atlanta Metro area pose as a threat. (water heater)

[mslashondapjohnson]

I was just wondering what the likely hood of an actual tornado coming thru (with the exception of the one last year in april) and ripping the whole area up to were bodies are found cities over. I am from the lone star state which is too common and was just curious to know as typically it has rained throughout the whole winter then will be sunny one day and hot/cold is generally a cause of a tornado. Please advise if you have any information.


Thanks in Advance!

[DeaconJ]

The warning system has improved over the past few years, making it very rare for the type of scenario you described to happen anywhere unless the tornado strikes at an inconvenient time...like when people are sleeping or at rush hour.

I have only been scared into my basement by the warnings twice over the past 15 years in Atlanta. Both times, they specifically named my area as being in the path of a tornado...and both times it ended up turning enough to take a different path. But I gathered my dogs and went down to sit with the water heater and the furnace for a few minutes.

[matt8325]

The warning system has improved. However, an F3 tornado hit my town last year without any warning at all. Even worse, it hit in the middle of the night !!!

[atlantagreg30127]

Typically, most tornadoes that hit the immediate Atlanta area are either F0 or F1 jobs that "bounce" a lot and don't stay on the ground a long time. An exception of course being the F2 that plowed through downtown last year and did a ton of $$ worth of damage, though.

In the burbs, generally you don't see a lot of strong ones, but once you start heading West toward Alabama, they seem to get stronger for some reason. Long ago they once said it had something to do with weird jet streams and how they weaken them at some points, but near the Western State line those streams are weaker, so the stronger tornadoes that Alabama typically gets more often "leak over" across the State line more often. So the Western Counties do sometimes see more F2 or F3 tornadoes than the City-proper does. A very rare F4 has hit (maybe 2-3 in many years) and F5 is extremely rare. Again, we typically don't get the "monster" wide tornadoes that stay on the ground for miles and miles like they get out West.

You can buy weather warning radios at Radio Shack and also Kroger stores, that allow you to program specific counties in them. That way you don't have to listen to tons of false alerts for places far from you and you can program only the counties close to you in them.

We seem to get bad Spring tornado seasons about once every 5 or so years here. Last year was a pretty bad one in March, but it quickly dropped off not long after that. Five years before last year, we also had a Spring and early Summer where it just seemed like every freakin' day there were tornado warnings. The last before that one was about 6 years earlier - so, there's sorta-kinda a trend.

Here's a map that shows how many tornadoes hit each County up through 2007 (that were seen and reported): http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ffc/images/tornado.gif

[atl1221]

A lot of times, the Atlanta metro area is "saved" by a wedge of cooler & drier air that comes down the east side of the Appalachain Mountains. Often times very bad storms will rip through Alabama, then steadily weaken after crossing the Georgia line.

[luckysnap]

No one yet has been hurt by a warning.

[matt8325]

Originally Posted by atl1221

A lot of times, the Atlanta metro area is "saved" by a wedge of cooler & drier air that comes down the east side of the Appalachain Mountains. Often times very bad storms will rip through Alabama, then steadily weaken after crossing the Georgia line.

that's mainly for areas in the north and east metros, often the wedge doesnt make it to the west and south metro.