A wind advisory was lifted for North Georgia, including the metro Atlanta area Tuesday evening, but not before blustery weather triggered scattered reports of power outages.
“Trees fell on our lines due to winds around midmorning,” causing power outages in the metro Atlanta area, said Christy Ihrig, spokeswoman for Georgia Power.
As of 5:20 p.m., about 1,500 customers were out of power statewide -- down from a peak of roughly 4,000. Slightly less than 700 were still in the dark in the metro Atlanta area; about 400 were off Glenwood Road in the Decatur area, while the rest were in the Tucker area.
Electricity was scheduled to be restored there within one to two hours, Georgia Power spokeswoman Carol Boatright said.
Inclement weather coupled with a malfunctioning antenna in the instrument landing system for one of the five runways at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport caused arrival delays approaching 1½ hours Tuesday afternoon.
The antenna went out at 10 p.m. Saturday for Runway 10-28, the southernmost runway at the airport, according to FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.
As long as the weather was clear, pilots could land visually, but when the weather closed in and cloud ceilings and visibility dropped to the point instrument approaches were required, the runway became unusable for landings. Departing flights could continue to use the runway.
"As a result, two runways were available for arrivals, instead of three during peak arrival times," Bergen said.
The antenna was replaced, Bergen said, and Tuesday, “we had to flight check that with an FAA airplane with special equipment to fly the approach to make sure the system was calibrated properly."
The check was successful, Bergen said, and the system returned to service at 5:15 p.m. Arrival delays at Hartsfield-Jackson vanished shortly thereafter, according to the FAA flight delay website.
Overnight rainfall totals included 1.39 inches in Alpharetta, 1.20 inches in Dunwoody and 1.15 inches at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, where the rain deficit for the year through Monday was 11.11 inches.
All of that overnight rain led to numerous crashes on metro interstates during the early part of Tuesday’s rush hour.
Early wrecks were reported on Ga. 400 southbound near Haynes Bridge and Mansell roads and on I-85 northbound near Cleveland Avenue.
Standing water was causing issues for motorists on I-285 eastbound at Riverside Drive, on I-20 eastbound near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and on the ramp from I-75 southbound to Northside Drive, while a fallen tree was reported on the ramp from I-85 northbound to Camp Creek Parkway.
Channel 2 Action News meteorologist Brad Nitz said there were flurries in the northeast Georgia mountains Tuesday.
Wednesday and Thursday should be sunny but cool in metro Atlanta, with highs in the low 50s and lows in the low to mid-30s.
The sunshine should continue into the holiday weekend, with highs in the low 60s and lows in the low to mid-40s, Nitz said.
--Dispatch editor Angel K. Brooks contributed to this article.
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