It's a strictly Georgia-Carolina thing, but we had one of those rare days where a big mess of supercell thunderstorms put tornadoes down all over the area. The storm prediction center put my region in a high risk category yesterday, and the storms came on like crazy during the late afternoon hours. I'm sort of amazed that nobody died in our region, with all the tornado reports and long-lived supercells. One of the early birds up in northwest Georgia claimed a couple, but the most extensive part of the outbreak in eastern Georgia and much of South Carolina somehow spared everyone else. It's not like they all missed populated areas, but mostly did. Towns like Wrens, GA, and Branchville, SC make notable exceptions.
The supercell that hit my immediate area tracked in up near Clark's Hill Lake and put down a tornado in North Augusta... presumably the same one that went through "the Valley", our cluster of mostly low-income former mill towns. Besides wrecking utilities and some residential damage, there aren't reports of any large-scale catastrophic damage. I could hear a persistent rumbling out during the storm, which didn't sound like familiar thunder, but don't know if it was a tornado or not. Same supercell traced US 78 down to the coast... reports of damage and tornado sightings the whole way down to the low county.
We've had a rougher-than-normal late winter/early spring storm season... looks like more on the way.
Another round comes in on Wednesday, after roughing up points west. The predominant storm track looks to bring in more of those systems that cause destructive thunderstorms in the southeast, and the rest of March should follow the trend.
On the other hand, a great majority of the 69 tornado deaths this season came during the massive outbreak on February 5th. For all the fireworks here the other day, our fortunes don't even compare.
HF 0032z17march