EF0 Tornado — Jefferson, Georgia

2008-05-11 · near Grange, Jefferson, Georgia

Event narrative

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that the EF0 tornado that originally touched down in north central Washington county, just northeast of Sandersville, continued on a long 33 mile track across eastern Washington, central Jefferson, and into far western Burke county before lifting one mile south of Vidette. The tornado entered Jefferson county approximately 10 miles west-northwest of Louisville and skirted across the northern part of Louisville, then continued eastward, exiting the county about seven miles east-northeast of Louisville. A little over 17 miles of the tornado path occurred within Jefferson county. The maximum path width of the tornado was estimated to be 440 yards or around 1/2 mile. Homes on the northern side of Louisville sustained considerable damage from the tornado, including both mobile homes and single/multiple-family homes. All together, 55 mobile homes were affected, two of which were destroyed and 50 had major damage. Approximately 185 single-family homes suffered damage. Of these, 70 were destroyed and 115 sustained major damage. In addition 13 businesses, six government facilities, and two non-profit organization building structures were damaged. Of the six government facilities, two of them were county schools. Hunderds of trees and power lines were also downed along the path of the tornado. At least 5600 residents of the area were left without power following the storm.

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 → (33.0200, -82.5800)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 102218. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.