EF2 Tornado — Dodge, Georgia

2011-04-05 · near Dubois, Dodge, Georgia

Event narrative

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that an EF2 tornado tracked across northern Dodge county. The tornado touched down approximately 10 miles northwest of Eastman near Friendship UMC Road, just outside the Gresston community, and traveled east-northeast to near the intersection of Friendship UMC Road and U.S. Highway 23. The maximum path width was determined to be 50 yards wide with maximum winds of 130 mph. At the initial touch down location of the tornado, a double-wide mobile home was completely destroyed. A 45-year old male who resided in this mobile home, was killed. Two other residents of the home suffered injuries. Several trees nearby were also blown over or uprooted. Further east near the end of the tornado's path, another mobile home had its roof and front porch destroyed.

[04/04-04/05/11: Tornado #4, County #1-1, EF2, Dodge, 2011:006].

Wider weather episode

An extremely progressive and highly kinematic upper flow remained in place across the U.S. A deep, full-latitude negatively tilted trough and associated strong Pacific cold front swept through the eastern U.S. April 4th into April 5th. An intense northeast to southwest oriented squall line of thunderstorms accompanied this front. Wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph were common along this line of thunderstorms as it traversed the entire Peachtree City (WFO FFC), Georgia Weather Forecast county warning area. Nearly every county received at least one severe thunderstorm warning during this event and nearly every county experienced extensive wind damage from these thunderstorms. Two brief EF0 tornadoes also occurred with this event in Gilmer county of north central Georgia. Downed trees on homes and vehicles also caused 7 fatalities during this event, the most in any single weather event since the catastrophic floods of late September 2009. Even several hours after the storms had passed, at least 50,000 residents of north and central Georgia remained without power.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (32.2846, -83.3234)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 295351. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.