Downburst winds blew in a Harris County barn's closed doors 16 years ago
Harris County Georgia storm damage September 2010
On September 21, 2010, downburst winds from a late-September thunderstorm blew over a chicken coop and blew in a barn's closed doors in Harris County, Georgia, with about three thousand dollars in damage across Harris and Troup counties.
Photo: Mark Stebnicki / Pexels
Sixteen years ago this week, on September 21, 2010, west Georgia was sitting in exactly the kind of stretch we have just lived through. A stubborn summerlike ridge had held over the Southeast, and highs ran in the 90s many days that late in the month. Then the western edge of that ridge began to give way, moisture crept in, and storms went up over west central Georgia in the middle and late afternoon.
They did not last long. They did not need to. In Harris County, the emergency management director reported that downburst winds from one of those storms blew over a chicken coop and blew in the front and back doors of a nearby barn. The doors had been closed. Damage in Troup and Harris counties, around Baughs Crossroads and Mountain Hill, came to about three thousand dollars. The National Weather Service noted frequent cloud-to-ground lightning with those cells. The storms faded after sunset, then redeveloped over northwest Georgia overnight, producing another lightning incident early on the 22nd.
A downburst is just cold air falling out of a storm and hitting the ground hard enough to spread sideways. It does not need a squall line or a big system behind it. It needs heat, moisture and one tall thunderstorm, which is what late September in this valley keeps handing us.
That same week in 2010, the story across the state line was the opposite problem. A dry pattern had worsened and spread drought through Lee, Russell, Chambers, Macon and Barbour counties, with the U.S. Drought Monitor drawing extreme drought along a line that ran through Opelika. Those severe conditions lasted about a week.
The calendar page around today has other entries. Fifteen years ago, on September 20, 2011, a slow-moving spin left behind by a cluster of storms parked over Alabama and wrung out heavy rain over Chambers and Russell counties. A shopping center parking lot on U.S. Highway 29 flooded deep enough to stall cars, and water ran underneath the doors of several businesses along the highway. Damage was put near twenty thousand dollars.
Thirty years ago, on September 21, 1996, thunderstorm winds knocked trees down at the intersection of Interstate 85 and U.S. 29 in northern Lee County, just outside Opelika. Nineteen years ago, on September 21, 2007, the remains of Tropical Depression Ten spun up a brief EF0 tornado in Barbour County, southeast of Clio near the corner of County Road 23 and County Road 8. A sheriff's deputy saw the debris; the path was about a third of a mile and no damage was found afterward. And twenty-six years ago, on September 22, 2000, the Muscogee County 911 center took a call about lightning setting a tree on fire in the far southern end of the county near Fort Benning.
Nobody was hurt in any of them. That is worth saying out loud, because this is the week of the year when the valley tends to get one last warm, unsettled shove before the air finally turns over.
This year the turn is arriving on schedule. The same heat that fed the 2010 storms has been on the board for ten days straight, and it comes off Thursday, with rain chances near zero from Hamilton to Phenix City through the weekend.
Slight Chance Showers And Thunderstorms then Partly Cloudy
WED
90°
69°
20%
Mostly Sunny then Slight Chance Showers And Thunderstorms
THU
83°
62°
4%
Partly Sunny
FRI
83°
59°
0%
Sunny
SAT
84°
58°
0%
Mostly Sunny
SUN
87°
59°
2%
Mostly Sunny
MON
88°
61°
8%
Mostly Sunny
Written by the CNAW 2 weather desk from CNAW 2 weather desk data. Last updated September 22, 2026 at 10:23 PM Eastern. Covering Columbus and Phenix City, Auburn–Opelika, LaGrange, Eufaula and the rest of the 19-county CNAW viewing area.
