EF0 Tornado — Jefferson, Georgia

2023-01-04 · near Magnolia, Jefferson, Georgia

Event narrative

The tornado touched down in central Jefferson county and produced minor damage to a couple warehouse buildings, farm equipment, and a school while also downing over a dozen trees between Louisville and Wren. The tornado touched down near the Ostro Steel building on Clarks Mill Rd where damage was sustained to the western wall of the metal building structure as well as to the heavy metal sign out front. The tornado then moved toward the ENE roughly along Mennonite Church Rd, where scattered trees were downed with minor damage to a metal roof structure. At the intersection of GA 296 and Warrior Trail an irrigation system was flipped over towards the north, indicating swirling winds. The tornado then moved towards the Jefferson County High School where the tornado quickly occluded, forcing strong rear-flank downdraft winds across the school as the tornado wrapped up to the north along US HWY 221. The winds over the school caused moderate damage to a softball field facility, destroying a shed, several signs, scoreboards, and the fencing around the field.

Wider weather episode

A strong developing system over brought moist southerly winds across the north and central Georgia, creating isolated severe thunderstorms and flash flooding on the afternoon and evening of January 3rd. The severe weather threat continued into Wednesday, January 4th, as the storm progressed eastward and brought a cold front across the area, producing isolated damaging wind gusts.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.0870, -82.4910)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1074979. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.