6/4/15
By Bill Kinsland
Hail falling in Blue Creek area. Photo by Neal Walden
Then around 5 PM Wednesday, in a noisy encore performance, thunderstorms came tearing through the county again. Bill said, this time the surprising upper-level low pressure system came from an unusual direction…the north! A fast-moving cold front collided with warm, moist air over the mountains to create a very noisy thunderstorm in Towns County near Hiawassee, prompting the National Weather service to issue Special Weather Statements for Towns and Rabun Counties.
Shortly afterward, the system came across the highest peaks of the Blue Ridge Divide down into White County, bring with it lots of thunder and cloud-to-ground lightning. The National Weather Service issued a Special Weather Statement, followed immediately by a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. The storm arrived over Helen around 4:45 PM and dumped hail and over two-thirds of an inch of rain in just 15 minutes.
The storm moved on to the south crossing over the Sautee Weather Station around 5:25 PM and dropped a quarter-inch of rain and pea-sized hail in a twenty-minute period. White County Sheriff Neal Walden reported the storm system dumped some hail to the Blue Creek area as well.
The system meandered to the southeastern parts of White County and arrived over the Leaf and Mossy Creek communities around 6 PM. The US Geological Survey rain gauge at Duncan Bridge recorded a third of an inch of rainfall in about a twenty-minute period. After that, the system subsided as it entered Habersham County near Cornelia.
