EF1 tornado in Laurens County, Georgia

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that yet another tornado touched down and skirted across the far northern part of Laurens county. This tornado was caused by a separate circulation, although within the same thunderstorm complex, that spawned the EF2 tornado slightly further southwest in north central Laurens county that resulted in two deaths and two injuries. This tornado touched down as an EF1 tornado in extreme northern Laurens county, approximately one mile west of Tuckers Crossroads. Near Tuckers Crossroads, one mobile home was destroyed and a manufactured home was pushed off its foundation. A truck was also moved 30 feet from its original location. The tornado continued on its eastward track into Johnson county, inflicting more damage before finally lifting just northeast of Wrightsville. Many trees were blown down along the path of the tornado. The entire path length of this tornado was 10 miles, but only 1 2/3 mile was within Laurens county. The maximum path width was estimated to be 1/3 mile.

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.