EF1 tornado in Bacon County, Georgia

Tornado January 9, 2024 · Bacon County, Georgia

EF1

Rating

11.4 mi

Whole path

400 yd

Path width

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Coffee County → Coffee County → Bacon County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 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

An EF1 tornado with peak winds near 110 mph raced NE from just west of Nicholls in Coffee County to Norman Cole Circle in west-central Bacon county before it dissipated. Most damage occurred to trees and farm buildings, with some outbuildings totally destroyed. The tornado continued to track NE crossing Roberts Cemetery Road, Dove Lane and Honey Suckle Road where EF1 strength continued to caused tree and outbuilding structure damage, including large hardwood trees blown down and

uprooted. The tornado continued NE and crossed Indian Road,

Black River Road and Florida Road where trees and outbuildings

were damaged. The tornado maintained EF1 strength as it damaged well-built

structures including a car port, outbuildings, farm buildings and

trees along Norman Cold Circle before dissipating around 1:05 pm EST.

The wider storm

A strong pre-frontal squall line of strong to severe storms moved quickly eastward across SE GA and NE FL during the afternoon and exited off the SE GA coast into the Atlantic waters by the late afternoon and offshore of the NE FL coast by the evening. Strong dynamics with this system included a very strong low-level jet of 45-55 knots and 0-6 km shear of 50-70 knots, which along with good lapse rates aloft around 6.5 C/km and high dewpoints into the upper 60s created 500-800 J/KG of CAPE. These ingredients promoted threat of damaging wind gusts of 50-70 mph or greater, hail, and isolated tornadoes within more intense storms embedded within the Squall line.

Began near Sessoms Station (31.5580, -82.6057).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 1154910. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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