EF0 tornado in Floyd County, Georgia

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City confirmed a second tornado touchdown in extreme northeast Floyd county, northeast of Pinson, just north of Georgia Highway 140. Within Floyd county the tornado remained at an EF0 intensity with a path width of 440 yards or 1/4 mile. The tornado quickly moved into extreme northwest Bartow county, and then into Gordon county where it eventually intensified to an EF3 causing considerable damage. This tornado was also determined to have begun from the same circulation that was earlier responsible for an EF2 tornado just west to just north of Rome, which caused significant damage to at least 20 homes in that area. Damage with this EF0 tornado in extreme northeast Floyd county was confined to several trees. No structural damage was observed.

[12/22/11: Tornado #2, County #1-3, EF3, Floyd-Bartow-Gordon, 2011:028].

A deep trough, quite characteristic of the early winter season of 2011-2012, was anchored across the southwest U.S. with broad southwest flow aloft evident from the southwest U.S. toward the mid-Atlantic. A summer-like Bermuda high pressure area was anchored off the southeast U.S. coast. A stationary front extended across the lower Mississippi valley toward the mid-Atlantic with a cold front approaching from the west of this region from Texas toward the Great lakes. The air mass across the region in advance of the stationary front was extremely moist, warm, and unstable for mid-December. As an embedded strong short wave traversed the region in the southwest flow aloft, a period of strong shear and marginal instability translated across the region during the late afternoon and early evening. These synoptic features supported a strong to severe quasi-linear convective system, or squall line, which moved across the state from west to east during the late afternoon and evening. The line of thunderstorms spawned a half-a-dozen tornadoes causing extensive damage across several counties from west central into northwest and north central Georgia. As the line moved east past Atlanta, it weakened considerably and no further severe weather was observed across east Georgia. The six tornadoes occurring on this date tied the record for the most tornadoes ever occurring during December within the Peachtree City, Georgia county warning area in December, namely six in 2005.