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EF1 tornado in Wilcox County, Georgia

Tornado January 12, 2023 · Wilcox County, Georgia

EF1
Rating
3.1 mi
Path length
100 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 100 yards (0.06 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

This tornado quickly touched down near the intersection of US Hwy 129 and Primrose Ln, where it caused extensive damage to a homestead along the road. The damage included several large trees uprooted, a silo moved and twisted off it's original location

straining several metal bracers, a barn and 2 sheds that were destroyed, and moderate structural damage to a home with several structural pillars and columns displaced. The tornado then crossed east of the highway and moved into an inaccessible area near the Ocmulgee River. Minor damage was found on the east side of the Ocmulgee River, but any continued path was inconclusive.

The wider storm

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.

Began near Abbeville (32.0660, -83.3810).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

6 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1079348. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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