VALDOSTA —
While the official damage assessment of Thursday’s weather event was incomplete as of press time, the National Weather Service gathered enough evidence Friday to make a preliminary identification.
The damaging winds and rain that struck Valdosta with little warning shortly after 3 p.m. was likely a strong downdraft — a phenomenon that often occurs too quickly to predict, said Meteorologist Todd Lericos of NWS Tallahassee.
Downdrafts occur when severe thunderstorms build up heavy moisture, and dry air around the outside of a storm forces precipitation down more quickly than normal, Lericos said.
The rapid descent pushes a cone of air downward out of the center of the storm that spreads out when it hits the ground, Lericos said, which manifests as a strong gust of wind — a downdraft or a microburst — capable of felling large trees and slinging hail, if present, at dangerous speeds.
When it was identified on radar and confirmed by sight, what the NWS calls “ground truth,” meteorologists issued the Severe Thunderstorm Warning at 3:45 p.m., Lericos said, but according to Valdosta residents, the heaviest wind and rain had already done its damage more than half an hour prior.
The NWS issued a Special Weather Statement, or SPS, for Lowndes County at 1:41 p.m., but this was intended to warn citizens that it was possible the growing storm could be more dangerous later.
The distance of the NWS from events in Lowndes County and other rural areas in South Georgia and North Florida often makes it difficult to make up-to-the minute predictions and warnings, even with eyewitness testimony, Lericos said.
“What typically happens is we see storms on the radar, and we make a determination as they roll across the county,” Lericos said. “Then we call and see what we can get in ground truth. Over rural areas, that’s hard to get. These storms happen to get quite strong right on the doorstep of Lowndes County, and there’s not a lot of time to react.”
Lowndes County receives telephoned weather warnings through its Code Red system, a service contracted with the NWS, County Clerk Paige Dukes said. Through the system, residents in areas identified as dangerous during a severe weather event are notified via telephone.
The call did go out, but the weather “cropped up very quickly out of nowhere,” Dukes said.
“I don’t think it’s something that can be easily forecast,” Dukes said. “That being the case, it takes a little longer to notify residents.”
While one road in unincorporated Lowndes County was temporarily closed by the felling of several trees, the majority of the damage was sustained inside the Valdosta city limits, Dukes said.
Most of the damage, which amounted to fallen trees across streets, power and telephone lines, and some houses, occurred in the Valdosta State University area, the Habersham Road neighborhood and in Sunset Hill Cemetery, said Deputy City Manager for Operations John Whitehead.
Damage was recorded along Patterson Street, Iola Drive, Cranford Avenue, Slater, Williams, and Moore streets. Brookwood Drive between Oak and Patterson streets was closed until about 3 p.m.
Residents throughout Valdosta reported power outages, but public works employees worked through the night and restored all power by Friday morning, Whitehead said.
Public works deployed cleanup and chainsaw crews, which cut the fallen trees which included more than one 100-year-old oak tree and many several tall pine trees throughout Valdosta, Whitehead said. Cemetery staff will handle the cleanup at Sunset Hill.
Public works had little advanced notification, but continued to monitor the weather and held back employees before the end of the work day in anticipation of downed trees, Whitehead said.
“This particular storm literally formed on top of Valdosta,” Whitehead said. “No one really expected it, but we had time to react.”
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