Georgia · Fulton County · Weather

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport Ground Stop as Severe Thunderstorms Down Trees in Fulton and Gordon Counties, GA

The FAA held aircraft bound for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on the ground from 6 p.m. Saturday and pushed the order back twice as a line of storms crossed metro Atlanta. The National Weather Service confirmed wind damage in two Georgia counties.

By Nathan Saunders Published Sept. 5, 2026, 8:15 p.m. ET 9 min read Ground stop ordered 6 p.m. · extended twice

What happened at Hartsfield-Jackson on Saturday evening?

Thunderstorms rolled across north Georgia through Saturday afternoon and reached the metro Atlanta area in the early evening.

At 6 p.m. the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, first setting it to run 45 minutes. It was pushed back at 6:45 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., then pushed back a second time at 7:18 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., with thunderstorms named as the cause, WSB-TV reported.

The airport, which describes its operation as one of the world’s busiest, sits on Atlanta’s south side, directly in the path a metro storm line takes across the region.

The timing landed on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, with the holiday on Monday, Sept. 7.

Where does the ground stop stand now?

The FAA publishes a running status page for the national airspace system. In the update stamped 8:05 p.m., Atlanta appeared under general arrival and departure delay information with departure delays of 16 to 30 minutes, an increasing trend and thunderstorms given as the reason.

No ground stop for the airport appeared in that same update.

That is not the same thing as a release. The FAA has not announced whether the 8:30 p.m. extension was allowed to run out, cut short or replaced, and the two figures measure different things.

What is a ground stop, and what does it do to a flight?

The FAA sets out the term in its Pilot/Controller Glossary. A ground stop is a process that requires aircraft meeting a stated set of criteria “to remain on the ground.”

Those criteria can be tied to an airport, to a block of airspace or to a category of aircraft. The glossary's own illustration is every departure headed for one named airport.

So a ground stop for Atlanta is not an order aimed at planes sitting on the ramp in Atlanta. It keeps aircraft that were about to fly to Hartsfield-Jackson parked at the airports they were due to leave, wherever those are, until the restriction is lifted.

The glossary also notes that a ground stop normally arrives with little or no notice, which is why an order can be issued, extended and extended again inside two and a half hours.

The measure is issued by the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, an FAA tactical operations facility whose stated job is monitoring and managing the flow of traffic across the whole national airspace system while holding delays down.

How is that different from a ground delay program or a plain departure delay?

These are three separate things, and the FAA counts them separately.

A ground delay program meters traffic rather than halting it. Each affected aircraft is handed an Expect Departure Clearance Time, which the FAA glossary defines as the runway release time assigned to an aircraft inside a traffic management program. Flights still go; they go on the agency's clock.

A departure delay figure is the third category and the plainest of the three. It is a reported range for aircraft leaving that airport. The 16 to 30 minute figure applied to flights lifting off from Atlanta, not to flights trying to reach it.

The distinction matters for anyone reading a status board. A ground stop and a departure delay can both be described as an Atlanta delay while affecting entirely different aircraft.

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Which Georgia counties were under a severe thunderstorm warning?

The forecast office for the Atlanta area is NWS Peachtree City, and it worked its way south and east across the metro through the evening.

The statement issued at 8:03 p.m. described a strong thunderstorm over Woolsey, near Fayetteville, tracking south at 20 mph with winds of 40 to 50 mph and pea-sized hail, and listed Griffin, Peachtree City and Senoia among the places in its path.

Several earlier warnings had already come and gone by then. The office covered Hall and Jackson counties at 5 p.m., added Barrow and Gwinnett at 5:18 p.m., and put out a Greene County warning at 5:47 p.m.

The metro core came next. A 6:10 p.m. warning covered DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett; a 6:46 p.m. warning covered Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton; and three separate warnings issued at 7:18 p.m. covered Newton and Rockdale, then Clayton, Coweta, Fayette and Fulton, then Butts, Jasper, Morgan and Newton.

What does it take for the National Weather Service to issue one?

The agency's threshold is specific. A severe thunderstorm is one producing a tornado, winds of at least 58 mph, which is 50 knots, and/or hail of at least 1 inch in diameter.

A warning is issued when radar indicates a storm meeting that bar or a spotter reports hail of an inch or larger, or winds at or above the wind threshold. Lightning frequency does not enter into it, and a warning usually runs for one hour.

A watch is the earlier and broader product. It goes out when conditions favor severe storms developing in and near the watch area, before any particular storm exists. A warning does not require a watch to be running first.

The gap that matters most on a night like Saturday is between radar indicated and observed. A warning can rest entirely on what the radar shows, with nothing confirmed underneath it. That was not the case across all of Saturday's storms, because the office logged real damage on the ground.

What storm damage has been confirmed on the ground?

Two preliminary local storm reports from NWS Peachtree City carry confirmed thunderstorm wind damage in Georgia on Saturday.

In Fulton County, multiple trees came down 4 miles north-northwest of Mechanicsville at 6:25 p.m., at 33.98 north and 84.27 west. The observation is credited to a fire department and rescue source, and the office issued the report at 7:55 p.m.

In Gordon County, trees and lines came down 2 miles northeast of Oakman at 5:10 p.m., at 34.58 north and 84.68 west. That one came from the county emergency manager.

WSB-TV Severe Weather Team 2 Chief Meteorologist Brad Nitz reported at 7:20 p.m. that trees and structures had been damaged in Alpharetta, in north Fulton, and at 6:40 p.m. that trees were down in Ranger, in Gordon County, from the line that came through earlier in the afternoon.

What is a local storm report, and who files one?

A local storm report is the product a National Weather Service forecast office issues to record what a storm actually did, as opposed to what radar suggested it might do.

The format is fixed. Each entry lists a time and date, the event type, a city location and coordinates, the county and state, the magnitude where one applies, the source of the observation and a short remark.

The source line is the part worth reading. Saturday's Fulton entry names a fire department and rescue source; the Gordon entry names an emergency manager. Trained spotters, law enforcement and members of the public also feed the same product.

The reports are labeled preliminary. Entries can be corrected, reclassified or dropped as an office reviews reports or runs a damage survey.

Why was a heat advisory running on the same afternoon?

NWS Peachtree City had a heat advisory going at the same time as the storms. It was issued at 1:51 p.m. Saturday and runs until 8 p.m. Sunday, citing heat index values up to 106.

The coverage area is enormous, running from Dade, Walker and Catoosa in the far northwest through Whitfield, Gordon, Bartow, Cherokee, Cobb, north Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall and Barrow, and south as far as Dooly, Crisp and Toombs.

The National Weather Service describes a heat advisory as covering dangerous heat that is not expected to reach the threshold for a warning product, with an extreme heat warning reserved for conditions above that line.

Gordon County, where the county emergency manager logged trees and lines down, sits inside the advisory area, as does the north Fulton zone where the Alpharetta damage was reported. Saturday's storms formed on an afternoon of that heat and humidity.

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What do federal rules require when passengers are kept on an aircraft?

The rule is 14 CFR 259.4, which requires covered airlines to adopt a contingency plan for lengthy tarmac delays at every U.S. airport where they operate and to stick to its terms.

On a domestic flight, the carrier must give passengers the chance to get off before a tarmac delay at a U.S. airport passes three hours. On an international flight the limit is four hours.

There are carve-outs. The clock is satisfied if the aircraft has begun heading back to a place where passengers can get off, and the requirement gives way when the pilot in command decides that deplaning would jeopardize safety or security.

Other obligations run alongside it. Adequate food and drinking water are required no later than two hours into a tarmac delay unless the pilot in command rules it out on safety or security grounds. Lavatories must stay operable, adequate medical attention must be available, and passengers must be told the status of the delay once it passes 30 minutes.

What do federal rules say about a canceled or badly delayed flight?

The refund rule is 14 CFR Part 260, adopted by the Department of Transportation in 2024.

Under section 260.6, a covered carrier that is the merchant of record must give a full and prompt refund of the airfare, including taxes and ancillary fees, to a passenger holding a nonrefundable ticket on a canceled flight or a significantly delayed or changed flight, where that passenger chooses not to fly on it, not to take rebooking on an alternative, and not to take a voucher, credit or other compensation.

Section 260.2 supplies the numbers. Among the conditions, a flight counts as significantly delayed or changed when departure moves three or more hours earlier on a domestic itinerary, or six hours or more on an international one; when arrival slips by the same margins; or when the origin or destination airport changes.

Who holds the records from a night like this?

Three different bodies hold three different pieces of Saturday evening, and each has its own route in.

Traffic management records, including the log of the ground stop and its extensions, sit with the FAA. The agency handles requests for operational records it does not publish through the federal Freedom of Information Act process, at foia.gov and through the FAA's own FOIA office.

The storm side belongs to the National Weather Service. The Peachtree City office issues the local storm reports and any storm survey findings, and its public products are archived and reachable through the agency's data interface at api.weather.gov.

County emergency management agencies fall under the Georgia Open Records Act. O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71 requires an agency to produce records responsive to a request within a reasonable time not to exceed three business days, and where only part of a set can be located in that window, to produce what it has and give the requester a description of the rest with a timeline.

Cost is limited by the same statute. Search, retrieval and redaction may be billed at no more than the prorated hourly salary of the lowest paid full-time employee with the skill to do the job, the first quarter hour is free, and copying is capped at 10¢ a page for letter or legal size documents.

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What has The Local Alert reported on earlier Georgia storms?

Storm damage of this kind has been a recurring story across the state this summer. In August a line of storms brought down trees and cut power in southeast Atlanta, in our report from Abner Place and Browns Mill Road, and a separate fallen tree closed a road and took down lines in southwest Atlanta.

Outside the metro, downed trees from a storm blocked school buses on Highway 96 in Twiggs County, and five inches of rain flooded streets on Tybee Island.

Hartsfield-Jackson itself has been in our coverage before, including a Delta flight that returned to Atlanta with engine trouble. The rest of our county coverage is on the Fulton County page.

What is not known yet?

What else are people asking about the Atlanta airport ground stop?

What happened at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Saturday?
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered a ground stop for the airport at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 5, 2026, as thunderstorms crossed metro Atlanta. The order was extended at 6:45 p.m. and again at 7:18 p.m., the second time to 8:30 p.m.

Is the Atlanta airport ground stop still in effect?
The FAA has not announced a release. In the agency's national airspace status update at 8:05 p.m. Saturday, Atlanta was listed with departure delays of 16 to 30 minutes on an increasing trend, with thunderstorms given as the reason, and no ground stop appeared for the airport in that update.

What is a ground stop?
The FAA Pilot/Controller Glossary defines a ground stop as a process that requires aircraft meeting set criteria to remain on the ground. Those criteria can be airport specific, airspace specific or equipment specific, and the glossary's own example is all departures headed for one named airport. A ground stop for Atlanta therefore holds Atlanta-bound aircraft at the airports they were due to leave.

Who issues a ground stop?
The FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center, which the agency describes as a “tactical operations facility responsible for monitoring and managing the flow of air traffic” across the national airspace system.

How is a ground stop different from a ground delay program?
A ground stop holds qualifying aircraft on the ground outright. A ground delay program meters flights instead, assigning each aircraft an Expect Departure Clearance Time, which the FAA glossary defines as the runway release time given to an aircraft in a traffic management program. The FAA's public status feed lists ground delay programs in their own category, separate from general arrival and departure delay figures.

Which Georgia counties were under a severe thunderstorm warning?
As of 8:05 p.m. Saturday, NWS Peachtree City had a severe thunderstorm warning out for Butts, Henry, Jasper and Newton counties until 8:45 p.m., and one for Clayton, Fayette, Henry and Rockdale counties until 8:15 p.m. Earlier warnings on Saturday covered Hall, Jackson, Barrow, Gwinnett, Greene, DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton, Coweta, Newton, Rockdale, Morgan and Jasper counties.

What are the criteria for a severe thunderstorm warning?
The National Weather Service defines a severe thunderstorm as one producing a tornado, winds of at least 58 mph, which is 50 knots, and/or hail at least 1 inch in diameter. A warning is issued when radar indicates those conditions or a spotter reports them. Lightning frequency is not a criterion, and warnings usually run for one hour.

What damage did the National Weather Service confirm?
Two preliminary local storm reports from NWS Peachtree City. In Fulton County, multiple trees down 4 miles north-northwest of Mechanicsville at 6:25 p.m., credited to a fire department and rescue source. In Gordon County, trees and lines down 2 miles northeast of Oakman at 5:10 p.m., credited to the county emergency manager.

What is a local storm report?
It is a product the local National Weather Service forecast office issues to log observed storm effects. Each entry carries the time, the event type, a city and county location, coordinates and the source of the observation, which can be a trained spotter, a county emergency manager or a fire department. The product is titled a preliminary local storm report, and preliminary means the entries can be revised.

Why was a heat advisory in effect during the storms?
NWS Peachtree City issued a heat advisory at 1:51 p.m. Saturday running until 8 p.m. Sunday, citing heat index values up to 106 across a large part of Georgia including north Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, Bartow and Gordon counties. The National Weather Service describes a heat advisory as covering dangerous heat that is not expected to reach warning criteria.

What do federal rules require if passengers are held on an aircraft?
Under 14 CFR 259.4 a covered carrier must give passengers the chance to get off before a tarmac delay at a U.S. airport passes three hours on a domestic flight or four hours on an international flight, subject to safety and security exceptions. Food and potable water are required no later than two hours into the delay, lavatories must be operable, adequate medical attention must be available, and passengers must be told the status of the delay once it passes 30 minutes.

Do passengers get a refund if a flight is canceled because of weather?
Under 14 CFR 260.6 a covered carrier that is the merchant of record must give a full and prompt refund of the airfare, including taxes and ancillary fees, to a passenger holding a nonrefundable ticket on a canceled or significantly delayed or changed flight where that passenger chooses not to fly on it, not to take rebooking and not to take a voucher or credit. The rule ties the obligation to the cancellation or the delay and to the passenger's choice, not to the cause.

What counts as a significantly delayed flight under the federal refund rule?
Under 14 CFR 260.2, a departure moved three or more hours earlier on a domestic itinerary or six or more hours earlier on an international one, an arrival three or more hours later on a domestic itinerary or six or more hours later on an international one, or a change to a different origin or destination airport. A prompt refund means within 7 business days for a credit card purchase and 20 calendar days for other forms of payment.

How does someone request records about the storms?
FAA operational and traffic management records are sought through the agency's Freedom of Information Act process. Storm survey findings and local storm reports come from the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City. County emergency management records fall under the Georgia Open Records Act, and O.C.G.A. 50-18-71 requires an agency to produce responsive records within a reasonable time not to exceed three business days, with no charge for the first quarter hour of search and copying capped at 10 cents a page.