Weather updates a must this holiday weekend

Published 6:32 pm Thursday, August 29, 2019

It’s too early to know if Hurricane Dorian will impact Georgia at all, especially anywhere around us.

However, it’s clear there’s plenty of interest in the storm as it nears the Florida coast, especially as many people travel for last-minute beach trips for Labor Day weekend. As of 6 p.m. Thursday, we know that the storm is likely to hit the Florida peninsula sometime Sunday night into Monday. From there, the storm’s path takes it anywhere from right up through Georgia to completely across Florida and up the Florida panhandle. There are plenty of memes on the internet making fun of weather professionals for the uncertainty in hurricane forecasting, but the truth as of this writing is that the storm could truly go anywhere.

If you’re tracking the storm this weekend for family members in the path or trying to plan a vacation, we recommend following the National Hurricane Center on Facebook. The NHC is the go-to place for the latest advisories on the storm, providing the information we and other media outlets publish throughout the day.

Meteorologists will have a much clearer picture of the storm’s path in the hours and days ahead, making it easier for people in the storm’s path to know whether they should leave or stay at home. If you know someone in Dorian’s path, we recommend telling them to play it safe. No matter how well a house is built, it might not be able to handle 150-mile-per-hour winds or the debris likely to be flying through the air. It’s not worth the chance.

If you’re hoping for a trip to the beach Saturday, you might be okay if you’re heading to one of the Alabama beaches or Panama City. However, the trip home might be busy, depending on if people from all parts of the Sunshine State are evacuating. 

That’s something to think about with millions already expected to be on the road.

As for impacts on Troup County, it’s too early to say what might be heading our way. If anything, it’s likely we will receive plenty of rain, but at this point there’s a chance the storm won’t impact us at all. 

As more information is released, we’ll publish it on our Facebook and website, so we recommend staying up to date there. 

Hopefully, Dorian weakens and makes a hard turn right before it gets to the Florida coast, but right now it’s too early to know what it’s going to do.