Thunderstorm Wind in Dooly County, Georgia

A survey team was sent to examine damage along the Crisp and Dooly county line and found a wide swath of damage, including dozens of trees down and 3 sheds/carports destroyed, primarily along and east of US Hwy 41 between Cordele and Vienna and along County Lin Rd east of Interstate 75, but damage was widely spread out and unidirectional.

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.