Hurricane Ian is projected to miss Macon. Could Middle Georgia residents still lose power?
Hurricane Ian will likely miss Middle Georgia altogether this weekend, the National Weather Service said Friday morning.
Ansley Long, a meteorologist with NWS’s Peachtree City office, said that the most Macon and the Middle Georgia area should expect from the hurricane are some strong winds.
“Macon is just outside of our wind advisory, on the edge of it,” Long said. “We’re really just anticipating some gusty winds today for you guys,” mostly due to the pressure grades the agency is seeing.
Wind gusts could get as high as 30 mph on Friday and Saturday, but sustained winds would be closer to 10 or 20 mph. The strong wind gusts do present the chance of power outages, though.
“That obviously could create some problems with power line issues, but otherwise, there’s really minimal rain chances, around 5%,” Long said. “That really shows you how much just a little bit of movement in the track can impact that.”
The dry forecast comes after projections earlier this week predicted up to 4 inches of rainfall in Middle Georgia. Hurricane Ian was projected to go through Tampa and hit the Macon area with some severity at the time, leading to rescheduled football games and local events.
The storm now looms over the South Carolina coast.
“It’s currently offshore of the South Carolina coast right now, and it’s projected to make another landfall later today,” Long said. “As far as Middle Georgia goes, the forecast has changed.”
The storm changed tracks drastically in recent days, largely because it slowed down over Florida and moved further east than expected. Forecasts as recent as Wednesday still saw rain in the forecast for Macon.
Evacuees could also flock to Macon from southern coastal Georgia and South Carolina due to the change in direction.
While power outages are still a possibility in Macon, Georgia Power has not yet reported any major ones in the area.
This story was originally published September 30, 2022 at 12:34 PM.