EF1 tornado in Appling County, Georgia

The tornado started in extreme western Appling County, possibly extreme SE Jeff Davis county and tracked NE at 50-60 mph before lifting along the NW part of the town of Baxley. The event occurred mainly along or parallel to Zoar Road. The peak wind was near 110 mph in the vicinity of County Farm Road. The most significant damage was in the area near Zoar Methodist Church where structural damage occurred to the church including roof damage and tilting the steeple and other outbuildings in the area. Extensive tree damage occurred to both hard and softwood trees with trees uprooted, snapped and large limbs twisted.

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.