Heritage First Headlines: Quick read on latest weather, closings as of 10:15 p.m. Thursday

#hometownheadlines

The live radar you’re seeing atop this page sums it up best: the weather. From decisions on early release of area schools to weekend events to a series of advisories, watches and warnings, the weather is at the heart of it all.

So as of 10:15 p.m., here’ s quick summary of what we know:

Early closings: The state government is shutting down at noon Friday and that includes Georgia Highlands, Georgia Northwestern, Chattahoochee Tech and Kennesaw State. Also closing early: Polk County Schools (lunch time) as well as schools in Cobb and Paulding counties. We expect to hear more in the morning and we’ll have a fresh round of updates between 5 and 6 a.m.

Other closings: Harbin Clinic will begin announcements at 5:30 a.m. The Floyd County GOP has postponed its monthly meeting to Jan. 30. More to come.

The weather: This will take a few minutes

• Flood watch: Begins at 3 a.m. Friday through 7 a.m. Saturday for all of Northwest Georgia. We could see up to two inches of rain. We are still recovering from the Christmas floods.
• Winter weather advisory: From 3 p.m. Friday through 7 p.m. Saturday, it covers Floyd, Bartow, Polk and Chattooga counties as well as others. Basically we could see up to an inch of snow in addition to all this rain.
• Winter storm warning: Gordon County is the only one in our area under this warning. It starts in just a few minutes (midnight) and goes through 7 p.m. Saturday. That means Calhoun, et al, have a strong chance of seeing snow and perhaps ice.
• Wind advisory: From 3 a.m. until 6 p.m. Friday, Chattooga is the only nearby county under this advisory. Gusts of 40 mph are expected. The danger: trees on power lines.
• We’ll hear from Tim Herrington, Floyd County’s Emergency Management Director, and the National Weather Service during Friday’s Hometown Headlines Radio Edition on WRGA 98.7 FM and streaming at wrga.streamon.fm (7-9 a.m.)

Other updates:

• Hometown Headlines will have continuing live storm coverage throughout the weekend.
• One note: If our website slows because of heavy traffic, don’t forget to check our Facebook and Twitter accounts. We were locked down by sheer volume for a few minutes today. We will get an upgrade early Friday thanks to our service provider.