Lightning, hail, heavy rains rumble through north Georgia

ATLANTA - Thunderstorms tore across north Georgia and metro Atlanta Wednesday night. The storms pelted the area with large hail, taking down trees and power lines as well as leaving thousands without power.

Some areas around Cedartown, Emerson and White saw close to golf ball sized hail as the thunderstorms began to trek into the state.There were scattered reports of trees and power lines down. Georgia Power said at the height of the storm about 26,000 customers were without service. Most of those were in northwest and north central Georgia as well as the metro area.

Most people will probably remember these storms for the amazing light show which accompanied it.

In Sandy Springs, FOX 5 cameras rolled as mostly cloud-to-cloud lightning lit up the sky like a series of flashbulbs and the deep rumbling thunder as its soundtrack.

In Atlanta, the FOX 5 Atlanta Tower Cam caught a bolt touching the top of the Bank of America tower in Midtown. FOX 5’s Georgia Power Camera also saw a dazzling display as the skyline was speckled with flashing streaks of pure energy.

The FOX 5 Storm Team tracked the severe weather as it moved across the state, logging the latest reports as well as posting the sights and sounds of the storm.

App users: Click here to watch the radar as it happened

The following is a timeline of some of the notable events:

1:30 p.m.

All warnings have been allowed to expire in metro Atlanta and north Georgia.

 

 

1:20 p.m.

Georgia Power said the number of reported outages dropped to near 21,000.

 

 

12:40 p.m.

Check out this video of lightning striking the Bank of America tower in Midtown Atlanta as the thunderstorms passed through and an awesome snapshot from FOX 5's Georgia Power Camera in Midtown.

 

 

12:25 p.m.

Storms continued to roll through the metro Atlanta area. Georgia Power outage numbers jumped close to 26,000 across northwestern and metro Atlanta.

 

 

11:55 p.m.

Viewers reported some trees and power lines down in Carrollton following a severe thunderstorm. Georgia Power revised outage numbers to just under 4,000. Most of those are in northwest Georgia with a small batch of outages in the Columbus area were a severe storm also moved through earlier.

 

 

11:25 p.m.

Georgia Power said just under 2,500 customers are without power, mostly in northwest Georgia north of Interstate 20 and west of Interstate 75.

Click here to see if your area is affected

 

 

11 p.m.

Most of north metro Atlanta was under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning stretching from Paulding County to Hall County. No damage has been reported by the passing storms, but a lot of reports of hail.

 

 

10 p.m.

The severe weather seemed to split into two storms with warnings reissued separately for Haralson, Polk, and Paulding counties as well as Bartow County and then Cherokee County. 

 

 

9:20 p.m.

Pea to Nickel size hail was reported in the Cedartown area. Some reports put the hail at quarter size. The storm producing the hail was part of a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Haralson, Polk, Paulding, Floyd, and Bartow counties issued around 9:15 p.m. The warning was allowed to expire in Floyd County at 10 p.m.