EF0 Tornado — Gordon, Georgia

2025-05-20 · near Blackwood, Gordon, Georgia

Event narrative

An EF0 tornado touched down late Tuesday evening at 1143 PM EDT

in Gordon County to the southeast of Calhoun near the

intersection of Hwy 53 and Foster Lusk Road. The tornado

uprooted a few small trees and continued ESE crossing

HWY53 destroying a pole barn on the south side of Hwy53 just past

Plainview Road. Debris from the barn was scattered approximately

150 yards to the east and a few trees were snapped in the area.

The tornado continued east snapping and uprooting several trees

along Erwin Road SE, including one on a home. A barn along Erwin

Road SE lost its roof and one of the walls was blown out as well.

The tornado continued ESE into a neighborhood along Rosewood Dr

where several trees where snapped and numerous branches were

scattered around. The tornado weakened as it crossed Erwin Hill

Road SE. It should be noted that the Hytop radar was down

during this time and the Peachtree City radar had the best view

of the storm. Radar data suggests the presence of a larger

mesocyclone with storm which originated as a supercell storm in

AL evolving into a hybrid supercell/QLCS storm into GA. This

particular tornado appears to be 1 of 2 which likely occurred in

this area as part of this larger mesocyclone and can be discerned

in both the data on the ground and from the KFFC radar.

Wider weather episode

A loosely organized line of thunderstorms and supercells moved into northwest Georgia during the late evening hours of the 20th. Strong outflow interactions required numerous tornado warnings with multiple reports of winds over 60mph. Storms weakened slightly as they moved through the metro Atlanta, however a couple strong cells redeveloped in the early morning hours of the 21st southeast of the metro. These cells produced large hail, damaging winds, and even a brief tornado.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (34.4541, -84.8723)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1268487. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.