The Southeast United States are bracing for yet another storm system moving through today.

While similar in strength to last Tuesday’s system, this time, the storm will approach Metro Atlanta late morning into the afternoon, which is a favorable time frame for stronger to severe storms to develop.

Friday’s system will bring less rain -- as much as half an inch to one inch of rainfall through Friday evening. The trade off is that the storm system will bring a higher chance for strong to severe thunderstorms capable of producing damaging winds and unfortunately, tornadoes.

The image below from the Storm Prediction Center indicates the “Probability of a Tornado within 25 miles of a given point”.

The brown area indicates a 5-9% chance of a tornado -- which was lowered from previous forecasts, but is still high for January. This probability of a tornado is for all of Metro Atlanta, as well as the majority of North Georgia.

Friday Timeline

Higher resolution forecast data indicates the Metro Atlanta threat time frame is 12pm to 6pm Friday.

The animation below illustrates the Futurecast Radar Imagery for tomorrow afternoon.

In addition to the potential for tornadoes, thunderstorms may also produce damaging wind gusts that are strong enough to knock down trees and powerlines.

What You Can Do

With a 24 hour heads up, use this time to think about where your Safe Place is located during the mid-morning into afternoon hours. Each school, office building, and home is different, and you will need to decide where would be the best place to go in the event of damaging winds or a tornado.

Also be aware that the more prepared you are for a storm, the better you will fare. Storm preparation may be as simple as monitoring 95.5 WSB Radio and WSB-TV, and keeping a NOAA weather radio nearby. Make sure your cellphone settings allow “Severe Thunderstorm Warnings” and “Tornado Warnings”.

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