EF1 tornado in Chattahoochee County, Georgia

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down within the Fort Benning Military Reservation approximately seven miles east-northeast of the Fort Benning Lawson Army Air Field or about 9.5 miles southeast of Columbus in far northern Chattahoochee county. The tornado was determined to have a path length of 1/4 mile long with a path width of 50 yards. The tornado removed one fourth of the roof and a portion of an exterior wall of a dormitory on the army base. More than a dozen vehicles were tossed, turned, and flipped about by the tornado. In addition, there were approximately 30 trees snapped, blown over, or uprooted along the path of the tornado. There were no injuries and no fatalities from this tornado.

[04/15-04/16/11: Tornado #2, County #1-1, EF1, Chattahoochee, 2011:008].

A deep, slow moving, negatively tiltled and highly diffluent upper trough was sweeping from the south central into the southeast U.S. during the April 15th and 16th period. A strong Pacific cold front accompanied the upper-level trough. An unseasonably warm, moist and unstable air mass was present across the southeast U.S. in advance of this weather system. An initial line of strong to severe thunderstorms began to move into northwest Georgia during the late afternoon hours of April 15th. As the line progressed further into the state, it evolved more in a large area of showers and thunderstorms with discrete supercells across especially central Georgia. These supercells produced damaging winds, hail, and three tornadoes. As the event continued into the early morning hours of the 16th, the severity decreased, but widespread rain and thunderstorms, along with isolated severe thunderstorms continued until around daybreak. In addition to the severe weather events, the prolonged and heavy rain event resulted in flash flooding along north Atlanta metropolitan area creeks and streams.