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EF0 tornado in Hancock County, Georgia

Tornado April 10, 2009 · Hancock County, Georgia

EF0
Rating
1.4 mi
Whole path
33 yd
Path width
$17K
Damage as recorded

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 33 yards (0.02 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

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that yet a second tornado touched down in Hancock county. This was also a brief EF0 tornado and touched down just north-northeast of downtown Sparta. The path width of this tornado was determined to also be 100 feet with maximum winds estimated to also be 80 mph. Numerous large trees were down along the path of the tornado in a primarily rural area. No structural damage was noted in association with this tornado.

The wider storm

A vigorous upper closed low was moving from the mid-south and Mississippi valley region into the mid-Atlantic and southeast U.S. A strong cold front accompanied the upper system. A strong low-level jet in advance of these weather systems transported warm, moist Gulf air northward into the region. With strong dynamics, hence shear, combined with an unusually moist, unstable atmosphere, the atmosphere was primed for a major weather outbreak. One round of thunderstorms passed through north Georgia during the early morning hours. A few minor severe weather events accompanied this system in northwest Georgia. Partial clearing followed the morning convection, allowing temperatures to soar into the mid 70s across much of north and central Georgia in advance of the main weather system. Scattered to numerous discrete supercell thunderstorms developed during mid-afternoon in northwest Georgia and progressed east and southeast across the remaining portions of the county warning area during the evening hours. Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes lingered into the early morning hours of the 11th across the southern counties of central Georgia. During the eight hour period from 5 pm EDT on April 10th to 1 am EDT on April 11th, a total of 14 tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down in north and central Georgia causing millions in damages. While some injuries were observed, no deaths were observed.

Began near Granite Hill (33.2905, -82.9712).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

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

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 163274. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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