EF3 Tornado — Haralson, Georgia

2012-03-02 · near Little Creek, Haralson, Georgia

Event narrative

An EF-1 tornado touched down at approximately 8:09 PM in Haralson County near Cross Roads Church Road and Tallapoosa Highway, uprooting and snapping trees for several miles. The tornado strengthened to an EF-3 along Bethlehem Church Road where a house collapsed and a repair shop was destroyed. One person was injured when the house collapsed into the basement, where he was taking shelter. At that residence, two dogs were killed. A cow died in a nearby field. The tornado continued across Haralson County, crossing Highway 27 where dozens of trees where snapped and uprooted. As the tornado continued east, minor damage was sustained to a church where a steeple was blown off. Hundreds of trees were down in forested areas in the eastern portions of Haralson County. The tornado continued into Paulding County where it lifted near McClure Trail and McClure Drive around 8:50 PM.

[03/02/12: Tornado #1, County #1-2, EF3, Haralson, 2012:005].

Wider weather episode

The cold front that stalled across central Georgia on March 1st began advancing back north as a warm front the morning of March 2nd. A secondary, and stronger, cold front moved across the Tennessee Valley late on Friday, advancing into Georgia Friday evening and into central Georgia early Saturday morning. Very warm and moist air ahead of the cold front provided for sufficient instability to produce widespread strong to severe thunderstorms across the region. One supercell produced two tornadoes in north Georgia - an EF3 in Haralson and Paulding Counties and an EF1 in Cobb County. Large hail, damaging winds, and flash flooding also occurred with these storms.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.8681, -85.2964)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 365183. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.