EF1 Tornado — Bleckley, Georgia

2022-04-06 · near Empire, Bleckley, Georgia

Event narrative

A tornado quickly developed along a line of storms moving through the town of Cochran during the evening hours of Wednesday April 6, 2022. The tornado spun up just west of town in a field south of Railroad Ave. The tornado first crossed W. Dykes St where roof damage was noted to several buildings and nearby homes. The tornado continued SE through town crossing 2nd and 3rd streets snapping and uprooting trees which caused some damage to homes before reaching Middle GA State College. The tornado snapped and uprooted trees on campus in addition to tearing a portion of the

roof on one of the campus buildings. The building damage and nearby tree damage at the intersection of 6th Street and College Street was the equivalent of mid range EF1 damage. The tornado continued SE crossing Pine Hill Drive and Willow Dr where numerous trees were snapped and uprooted on or very near homes in that area causing damage to several. The tornado continued east and began to weaken

but still sporadically snapping and uprooting trees along Denny Cooley Rd, Frank Cook Rd, Roddy Road, Cook and W. Chicken Road before lifting near Nicholson Carr Rd and county Road 257. It should be noted that the tornado doesn't appear to be consistently

on the ground once it gets east of the bypass east of Cochran and much of the damage east of Cochran was noted as spotty EF0. However, there was enough damage surveyed close enough damage surveyed close enough together to maintain a consistent track to County Road 257. [4/6/22: Tornado #7, County #1/2, EF-1, Bleckley/Dodge, 2022:027].

Wider weather episode

A multi-day severe weather outbreak initiated with a warm moist air mass situated over Georgia as a strengthening upper level system pushed across central Georgia. With moderate instability in place with increased shear, combined to create numerous severe thunderstorms, taking the form of a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) with several strong supercells ahead of the front. The resulting front stalled across central Georgia and interacted with a weaker shortwave moving up from the Gulf of Mexico, serving as a catalyst for another day of severe weather and flash flooding on April 6th.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.3883, -83.3783)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1022828. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.