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EF0 tornado in Wheeler County, Georgia

Tornado May 9, 2024 · Wheeler County, Georgia

EF0
Rating
15.8 mi
Whole path
150 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 150 yards (0.09 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 80 mph touched down to the

NW of the town of Alamo north of Blue Jay Road snapping a few

small trees. The storm continued east southeast crossing Little

Rock Rd snapping trees a few trees. The storm crossed mostly

swamp/lowland area before crossing North Broad St on the north

side of Alamo snapping and uprooting a few trees. When the

tornado entered the town of Alamo, EF0 damage was observed to a

small outbuilding where a wall had collapsed, a canopy on a

former service station had been damaged, a free standing light

pole had been downed, glass broken out of a small retail store

and a few fences blown down. The tornado dissipated as the

overall storm weakened once it moved through the small town of

Alamo.

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 Avants (32.1536, -82.8758).

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 1186084. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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