The Holiday Season ending December 2021 has been like Summer in Winter with recent day time highs in the 70's shattering long held records all over Georgia. By December 30, the jet stream began to sink lower toward the south producing massive severe weather including one massive thunderstorm topping out around 42,000 feet according to the radar blips and ended up dumping more than 3 inches in about a half hour, and in all more than 5 inches for the day. These are the results in the area of The lakes of White Oak, Summer Grove, and Heritage Ridge neighborhoods on the East Side of Newnan Georgia.
Above is the upper lake along the headwaters of the Sullivan Branch of White Oak Creek following the torrential downpour.
That's a lot of rain all at once and I wondered how the drainage would perform and what it all looks like following a massive dump of water like we just had. Farther down stream from the upper smaller lake, is the much larger Lake Summer Grove as seen in the following pictures...
The trail at this point was under water and at the upper side of the lake is a little island where usually a passerby can see a gaggle of geese walking around. Today it's under water.
The bench pictured here is part of a dock at the private park for residents that is usually about four feet or so above the water level. As far as I could tell there were no houses flooded and overall, what we are seeing is just swollen tributaries and drainage systems at capacity or just a little above. I wondered what it might be like below the dam....
Poplar Road was not flooded. The bridge appeared to be above water and boy was there lots of it moving! This is just after the Sulivan Branch of White Oak Creek and White Oak Creek proper make the confluence and 5 inches of water a day above this area is resulting in what we see now.
Next I decided to drive about 16 miles or so over to Senoia and Stars Mill to see the roaring water spill over the water fall there, but they didn't get near the rain that Newnan got and so it wasn't as spectacular - although beautiful as always - as I might have imagined. Despite all the rain, the severe weather warnings and tornado watches, I really enjoy seeing mother nature at work. Hopefully everyone stays safe and vigilant because the warm temperatures and severe weather is expected to continue into the beginning of 2022, and then turn cold once the frontal system finally completes it's course. Happy New Year everyone. Stay safe!
Updated after original post: Melissa Nord at the Severe Weather Tracking Center on 11 Alive News Atlanta featured my picture on the news much to my surprise. I'm one of the Storm Trackers now, which is quite the honor. Thanks Melissa. I'm always out there taking pictures so any weather related content will be sent your way.
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