13WMAZ says the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning on June 18, 2026, for Bibb, eastern Muscogee, northeastern Chattahoochee, southwestern Talbot and southeastern Harris counties until 7:00 PM EDT. At 6:27 PM, a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was detected near Kenwood, about 7 miles east of Columbus, moving northeast at 35 mph.
Residents in the warning area included people in Waverly Hall, North Fort Benning, Upatoi, Ellerslie, Flat Rock, Box Springs, Kenwood, Midland, Juniper, Vista Terrace, Baughville and Olive Branch. The same storm system also left over 70,000 Georgians without power as of 6 p.m., with the largest outages in DeKalb, Fulton and Clayton counties.
Metro Atlanta and central Georgia
The National Weather Service had already issued a tornado watch for much of metro Atlanta and central Georgia through 11 p.m. Thursday. That watch covered 38 counties, including Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb, Gwinnett, Clayton, Douglas, Fayette, Henry and Rockdale, along with Carroll and Paulding west of Atlanta and Bibb, Houston and Peach in central Georgia.
The watch also included Atlanta, Decatur, Marietta, Lawrenceville, Douglasville, Griffin, Newnan, Peachtree City, Macon and Warner Robins. A tornado watch means weather conditions are favorable for tornadoes and severe thunderstorms to develop, while the warning near Columbus was aimed at a smaller area where a tornado-capable storm had already been detected.
Georgia Power and airports
Georgia Power said its crews were ready to respond to outages as soon as it was safe to do so. DeKalb and Fulton counties each had over 10,000 homes without power, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was reporting heavy delays because thunderstorms were moving through the area.
A flood watch also remained in effect for parts of 59 Georgia counties, and the National Weather Service warned that saturated ground may lead to flooding of rivers, creeks, streams and other areas across Georgia. That flood watch was expected to expire late Friday night, leaving the warning and outage response as the immediate concern for people across the affected counties.
