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EF1 tornado in Glascock County, Georgia

Tornado February 18, 2009 · Glascock County, Georgia

EF1
Rating
10.4 mi
Whole path
100 yd
Path width
1
Death
3
Injuries
$550K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Hancock County → Warren County → Glascock 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 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

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that the EF3 tornado that first touched down in Hancock county, causing extensive damage in the Hickory Grove Community as well as killing one and injuring three, continued across extreme southern Warren and into extreme northwest Glascock counties before lifting. The tornado remained a weaker EF1 with a maximum path width of 100 yards as it crossed from Warren into Glascock county. The tornado traveled a total distance of nearly 11 miles, but less than two miles within Glascock county. Within Glascock county, the tornado tracked across a very rural area. Thus, damage was confined to around a hundred downed trees.

The wider storm

A strong cold front accompanied and deep negatively tilted upper trough through the eastern U.S. from the 18th into the 19th. An unseasonably warm and unstable air mass developed in advance of the cold front during the late afternoon and early evening across north and central Georgia as warm, moist air rode northward into Georgia on a strong low-level jet. Afternoon temperatures in the 70s and dewpoints in the 60s, combined with strong shear and moderate instability, resulted in the development of numerous supercell thunderstorms from mid-afternoon until a few hours after midnight on the 19th. Ten tornadoes, ranging in scale from EF0 to EF3 tracked across several north and central Georgia counties. The worst tornadoes affected the east central Georgia counties of Jasper, Putnam, Hancock, and Jasper. A death was observed in Hancock county with an EF3 tornado and several injuries were reported from Putnam and Hancock counties. In addition to the tornadoes, very large hail occurred with several of the thunderstorms, including four-inch diameter hail in Coweta and Fayette counties just south of Atlanta. Numerous reports of golf ball and larger-sized hail were received. The event resulted in millions of dollars of damage and the destruction of several homes in north and central Georgia counties.

Began near Mitchell (33.2600, -82.7400).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 154545. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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