Thunderstorm Wind — Charlton, Georgia

2017-01-22 · near Homeland, Charlton, Georgia

Event narrative

The public estimated a wind gust to 70 mph just east of Folkston.

Wider weather episode

An exceptionally rare high risk of severe storms was issued for the local forecast area with extremely strong shear including a 70 kt 850 mb jet combined with an anomalously deep mid level trough across the Gulf Coast region pumped Gulf of Mexico moisture and instability across the area head of a potent storm system. Two waves of severe storms moved across the forecast area, once during the pre-dawn and early morning hours across SE GA, then another squall line of discrete supercells and leading supercells across both SE GA and NE FL in the afternoon and evening. Three tornado touchdowns were confirmed in SE GA during this time period with 1 fatality in Columbia county Florida due to a tree falling on a mobile home. This was a very unusual strong storm system that brought all modes of severe weather to the Jacksonville Forecast area.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (30.8400, -81.9800)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 668804. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.