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EF0 tornado in Laurens County, Georgia

Tornado May 9, 2024 · Laurens County, Georgia

EF0
Rating
15.8 mi
Whole path
100 yd
Path width

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

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 EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 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 EF0 tornado with maximum winds of 75 mph first touched down to

the NW of HWY 46 just inside the Laurens County line 46 where

EF0 tree damage was observed before turning to the southeast

through mostly rural and wooded areas along Alligator Creek before

crossing Dublin-McRae Hwy where it snapped a few trees. A TDS

briefly appeared on KJGX radar within the largely swamp/lowland

area. Per both radar and damage noted on the ground, the tornado

began to occlude as it shifted to a northeasterly path and

dissipate near the convergence of the Laurens/Dodge/Wheeler

county lines east of Hwy 46.

The wider storm

Several waves of severe thunderstorms moved through the area from the evening hours of the 8th through the early afternoon hours of the 9th. Initial convection ahead of the first line was able to tap into ample shear to produce tornadic thunderstorms in Northwest GA. This threat transitioned more into a wind event as the first line moved through the morning of the 9th. This line continued southward into the metro causing sporadic wind damage. Thunderstorms weakened as they moved south of I20, however another line of severe made its way out of AL/TN, producing further wind damage in the North. The initial line slowly moved into the southern portion of the CWA where conditions were not as worked over and shear was stronger. Storms re-strengthened, with several producing brief tornados.

Began near Westbrook (32.2267, -83.0107).

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 1186083. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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