EF2 Tornado — Meriwether, Georgia
2023-01-12 · near Odessadale, Meriwether, Georgia
Event narrative
Re-cycling from a parent supercell tracking from Chambers County (Alabama) into Troup County (Georgia), this tornado touched down just south of Callaway Airport, snapping several trees along Pegasus Pkwy. Damage quickly picked up just to the northeast approaching Whitesville Road (just north of I-85) where several one-story metal buildings had significant roof damage, along with their garage doors and windows blown in. Numerous trees in this area were either snapped or uprooted. Several power poles along Orchard Hill Road were broken off near the top. Maximum winds in this area were determined to be in the 90-100 mph range (EF-1). As the tornado continued northeast, a large warehouse building at the Vaughan Xpress transportation facility sustained significant damage. About 1/4 of the large warehouse was completely destroyed with several metal bolt anchors stretched or ripped up out of the concrete pad. Winds were estimated between 110-120 mph at this time and as it crossed I-85, a large number of trees were snapped (some near the base) or uprooted. Widespread significant damage by this strong tornado continued across the Baldwin Park community. In this location, more than 30 homes had significant damage; one and two-story homes lost major parts of the roof and upper level floors along with at least partial-collapse of exterior walls. Debris was thrown for hundreds of yards. Winds in this area likely maxed out around 120 mph, making this an EF-2 tornado. The tornado continued east-northeast, cutting down trees across Upper Big Springs Road, I-185, and Stewart Road (east of I-185). There's a fairly rural/wooded area between Stewart Road and the next road (Parmer road) about 2 miles apart but damage picked back up along Hwy 109/Greenville Road (mostly trees snapped/uprooted). The tornado then ripped through the town of Mountville, snapping and uprooting multiple medium to large trees along Trippe and College streets. A couple more trees were uprooted along Wood Road as it moved into Meriwether County. Numerous trees were down near the intersection of Keith Rd and Evans road as the damage veered right. The tornado continued across a wood area, crossing Beech Creek, with more large branches found snapped on Wilbur Keith Rd near Fox Den Rd. The giant mesocyclone continued east where the tornado merged with the ongoing Meriwether/Northwest Pike tornado near Highway 100 and Forrest Rd.
Wider weather episode
A line of strong thunderstorms moved into north and central Georgia during the afternoon through the evening on Thursday, January 12th and spawned numerous tornadoes, including several that were long track and significant. Ahead of this line, a few supercells also spawned tornadoes in portions of central and eastern Georgia. Upon further examination of radar data and high resolution areal imagery, it was found that several tornadoes rotated around and within a larger vortex and caused the widespread damage in the area near Griffin GA, over 2 miles wide in some cases.
The result was that as many as 4 tornadoes were on the ground simultaneously in SW Spalding County, which were rotating around the larger circulation, merging together in several cases and crossing paths. The presence of 3 mergers was identified in the reanalysis. Additional analysis revealed that wind speeds in the EF3 storm reached
as high as 155mph or high end EF3. This confirmed a total of 14 tornadoes, including 10 which resulted from the same storm/larger mesocyclone.
View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.0490, -84.8630)
Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1079317. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.