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EF3 tornado in Richmond County, Georgia

Tornado April 10, 2009 · Richmond County, Georgia

EF3
Rating
11.7 mi
Path length
880 yd
Path width
12
Injuries
$5.0M
Damage as recorded
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 880 yards (0.50 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF3 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF3 is severe damage: whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, consistent with estimated gusts of 136–165 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

A supercell tornado continued out of Columbia county and tracked across the Augusta area severely damaging many homes and business and taking down numerous trees and powerlines. One hundred and fifty people had to be evacuated from a nursing home that was damaged and there were around a dozen minor injuries.

The wider storm

Supercell thunderstorms moved across the CSRA and produced large tornadoes. One tornado tracked across Columbia and Richmond counties then went into Aiken county South Carolina along highway 278. The second tornado tracked across Burke county then into lower Barnwell and Allendale counties in South Carolina. Several homes were destroyed and many had moderate to severe damage. Widespread trees and powerlines were also down. Total damage estimate was 3 million dollars.

Began near Ft Gordon (33.4510, -82.1620).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

4 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF3 Burke CountyEF2 Columbia CountyEF0 McDuffie CountyEF0 Burke County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 154424. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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