MOULTRIE – Colquitt County residents should remain cautious as the National Weather Service warns of an incoming round of strong to severe storms and heavy rains.

The NWS continues to predict a slight risk of severe thunderstorms (level 2 of 5) following marginal risks (level 1 of 5) on Monday and Tuesday.

“A stationary front currently over central Alabama and central Georgia will move southward into southern Alabama and southern Georgia,” the NWS said in an email briefing to The Observer Monday morning. “Showers and thunderstorms will develop along and ahead of the front, and a few storms may be severe with large hail and damaging winds. While the tornado risk is a bit lower, it is non-zero, and a tornado or two cannot be ruled out.”

“For Tuesday, the cold front will sink into the Florida counties,” the forecast said. “As it does so, another round of showers and thunderstorms will move through the area with a marginal risk of damaging wind gusts and perhaps a tornado or two.”

There is a marginal risk of excessive widespread rainfall Monday night through Tuesday across the county.

Residents should expect around 2 to 4 inches across portions of southeast Alabama and southwest Georgia Tuesday night with lesser amounts elsewhere. However, should storms begin training, localized totals of greater than 4 inches are not out of the question. Totals this high could result in a localized flash flood risk.

The NWS Tallahassee office’s website at weather.gov/tae initially reported three incidents of damage in Colquitt County from storms that came through about Saturday evening. Two additional incidents of damage were also reported Sunday evening:

• Tree down near Gin Creek.
• Power lines down on Highway 37 West.
• Utility pole reported down, 1 mile southeast of Moultrie.
• About one-inch of hail reported in Meigs
• Thunderstorm winds snapped trees east of Highway 319 about two miles south of Coolidge.
• Damage was also reported in several of the surrounding counties.

A couple of trees were also reported down and dime-sized hail fell in the Berlin area over the weekend, Colquitt County Emergency Management Director Justin Cox said on Monday.

At least 26 people were killed due to severe storms that struck Mississippi and Alabama Friday night. The same storms struck middle Georgia on Saturday, and Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency on Sunday morning.

At least one tornado was indicated by radar Sunday morning in LaGrange, Georgia, according to NBC News.

Also on Sunday, President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in Mississippi, where most of the deaths occurred.

Residents are encouraged to sign up for CodeRED, a high-speed emergency mass notification service provided by OnSolve, LLC, that Colquitt County has implemented. Interested residents can opt-in for the alerts at https://public.coderedweb.com/CNE/BFE66A05A37B.