EF1 tornado in Fayette County, Georgia

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that a brief and weak EF1 tornado touched down in far southeast Fayette county along the northeast shore of Lake Horton. The tornado first touched down near the end of Woolsey Creek Trail just west of Georgia Highway 92. The tornado then moved northeast a total of 1.6 miles, lifting just north of the end of Mudbridge Road and just shy of the Clayton county line. Intermittent tree damage was observed along the path of the tornado with a total of 35 trees snapped or downed. Two homes sustained minor roof damage and two outbuildings, including a large barn, were destroyed.

[12/22/11: Tornado #5, County #1-1, EF1, Fayette, 2011:031].

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.