EF2 Tornado — Carroll, Georgia

2008-05-11 · near Carrollton, Carroll, Georgia

Event narrative

A survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that yet a second brief spinup tornado, spawned by the same parent thunderstorm, touched down in Carroll county. This tornado affected eastern Carroll county, touching down near the Diamond Court Subdivision off Cross Plains-Hulett Road, about three miles south of Hulett. Again, this tornado was embedded within a much larger and extensive area of straight-line wind damage that tracked across much of central Carroll county from near Bowden to the Douglas county line, southeast of Hulett. One home was completely destroyed by this second tornado and another received significant damage. A number of other homes sustained minor to moderate roof damage. Again, the path length and path width of this tornado were also only 100 yards.

The combined damage from the two tornadoes and straight-line wind damage within Carroll county caused damages in excess of $10 million. Damages consisted of the destruction of three mobile homes, 18 mobile homes with major damage, and 16 mobile homes with minor damage. Thirty-five single family dwellings were destroyed, 211 single-family dwellings sustained major damage, and another 346 suffered minor damage. In addition, a total of four businesses were destroyed, 133 more which had major damage, and 31 suffering minor damage. A public works building was also destoyed. Finally, at least $800,000 in damages was reported to electric utility poles in Carroll county.

Wider weather episode

A stationary front was draped across north Georgia early on May 10th with an active northwest flow aloft. Meanwhile...a vigorous short wave aloft was approaching the area from the southern plains. The stationary front provided the focus for two rounds of showers and thunderstorms, one early in the morning on the 10th and another in the afternoon. The activity tracked east-southeast with the upper flow aloft, mainly across north Georgia during the early morning and across central Georgia during the afternoon. An isolated strong supercell also tracked across the southern part of central Georgia during the evening. After a lull of convective activity for about four hours, intense multicell thunderstorms tracked into the area from Alabama after midnight and before dawn on the 11th. As these thunderstorms tracked across west central and central Georgia, 15 tornadoes were identified by subsequent surveys making this the most significant tornado outbreak to affect the area since the Katrina-associated tornadoes on August 29, 2005. Millions of dollars of property damage were reported as many homes were destroyed from these tornadoes from the western and southern suburbs of Atlanta southeastward across Macon, Dublin, and other counties in east central and southeast Georgia. Many of these counties were eligible for disaster assistance from the federal government.

In addition to the tornadoes and thunderstorm winds that caused extensive damage in dozens of counties across north and central Georgia during the early morning hours of May 11th, strong gradient winds developed on the back side of the strong cold front that moved through the area as low pressure intensified across the mid-Atlantic region. The strong winds combined with wet ground resulted in dozens of trees being blown down in some north Georgia counties. There were also two deaths as a result of downed trees in Barrow and Gwinnett county, all non-thunderstorm-related winds.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.5800, -84.9584)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 100410. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.