One witness said the severe storm that tore through Georgia this week sounded like “a hundred monkeys with hammers banging all over the house.”

I must admit, after years of covering tornadoes and hearing people say, “it sounded like a freight train,” the unusual description of “monkeys with hammers” caught me off guard. But this tornado season has been anything but usual here in the Southeast.

Tuesday night’s severe weather came less than two weeks after an EF-2 tornado struck a suburb just south of the city, and two months after another EF-2 twister tore through the middle of Downtown Atlanta.

EF-2 is a categorization on the Enhanced Fujita Scale for tornadoes packing winds between 111 and 135 mph. Meteorologists believe Tuesday’s damage in Cherokee County was caused by a combination of straight-line winds and a tornado in the EF-1 category (winds between 86 and 110 mph).

Cherokee County authorities have increased their preliminary assessment to 1,000 homes damaged, 250 of them severely.

And while a storm-weary Southeast looks forward to the end of the spring tornado season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has just issued its predictions for the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, which begins June 1.

According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, there is a 25 percent chance of a “near normal” season and a 65 percent chance of an “above normal” season.

An average season produces 11 named storms, including six hurricanes.

NOAA’s 2008 outlook suggests a 60 to 70 percent chance of 12 to 16 named storms, including six to nine hurricanes.

This season’s first system to reach tropical storm strength will acquire the name “Arthur.”

It’s anyone’s guess whether Arthur will make landfall and whether its winds will produce sounds like “dynamite” or “a hundred monkeys with hammers.” For the sake of my region, I certainly hope not!