Due to possible heavy rains and storms stemming from Hurricane Ian, a number of high school football games in Georgia have been moved up to Thursday night, including those involving teams from Cobb schools.
The Cobb County School District Media Relations office said in a message that all of the Cobb teams in action this week are playing games on the road—out of the county—and Thursday’s kickoff times are the same for what had been scheduled on Friday.
Although Cobb schools are on fall break, sporting events are taking place. Only four Cobb public high schools were to play this week, three of them from East Cobb:
- Lassiter at Johns Creek
- Sprayberry at Alpharetta
- Walton at North Paulding
According to the National Weather Service, Ian is on a track to the Florida Gulf Coast near the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, and is projected to make landfall Wednesday afternoon, possibly as a Category 4 hurricane.
Ian passed over Cuba Tuesday as a Category 3 storm, and more than 2.5 million people in Florida have been encouraged or ordered to evacuate.
The storm system is expected to reach southern Georgia early Friday and could move into the Atlantic Ocean and threaten the Georgia coast. Gov. Brian Kemp has declare a state of emergency for all Georgia counties from 7 a.m. Thursday to midnight Friday.
The preliminary forecast doesn’t include Cobb County and metro Atlanta in those warnings. The NWS is forecasting a 40 percent chance of rain Friday, from the mid-afternoon through the evening.
The Atlanta area could get between 1-3 inches of rain during that time, and possibly more in some areas of north and central Georgia.
Strong winds between 30-45 mph could be felt in some areas, and there could be power outages and isolated flash flooding.
Rain will continue all weekend, with a 60 percent chance Saturday and tapering off to a 40 percent chance Sunday and 20 percent on Sunday night and into next week.
For more information and to track the hurricane click here.
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For details on Ian’s projected track, winds, rainfall, and storm surge:
https://www.weather.gov/srh/tropical?office=chs#activestorms