EF2 tornado in Thomas County, Georgia

This tornado was the first of two produced by the same thunderstorm that moved across South Georgia early Sunday morning. The tornado initially touched down just west of US-19 in Thomas County and then moved NE across mainly rural areas of the county. Damage was initially limited in the vicinity of US-19 to snapped and uprooted pine trees. The tornado began to strengthen and produced more significant damage near the vicinity of Crowley and Hall Roads where a home lost a significant amount of roof deck and numerous large trees were snapped and uprooted. Damage in this area was consistent with higher end EF-1 to lower end EF-2 intensity. As the tornado neared US-319 north of Thomasville, extensive areas of snapped pine trees were found along the damage path in some areas several hundred yards wide. Also in the vicinity was a mobile home that was completely destroyed. Damage in this area was consistent with lower end EF-2 intensity. The tornado continued across mainly rural NE Thomas County crossing Centennial Road where a double-wide mobile home was completely destroyed. Damage in this area was consistent with a EF-2 tornado. After this point, damage was mainly limited to significant tree damage along the path, though some structural damage occurred to the NW of Pavo before the tornado crossed into NW Brooks County. Damage along this section of the tornado was rated EF-1. Max winds for the tornado were estimated near 120 mph. Damage cost was estimated.

A multi-day severe weather event struck the southeast January 21-22, 2017 with three rounds of severe weather moving through the area. The first round of severe weather started during the mid-morning hours on Saturday, January 21, 2017 as a squall line pushed into southeast Alabama and the Florida panhandle. As it pushed eastward nine warnings were issued with a total of 18 damaging wind reports (trees and power lines downed) related to these storms.

After a brief lull during Saturday evening as the aforementioned squall line washed out near the Gulf Coast, strong southerly flow returned late Saturday night as a warm front pushed northward across the Florida Big Bend and southern Georgia. Initially with this late Saturday night to early Sunday morning event, a strong supercell moved across southern Georgia producing a tornado that moved across Thomas and northern Brooks Counties. This was the first tornado across the area with this multi- day event. From the same supercell that produced the tornado in Thomas and northern Brooks Counties, another tornado developed that tracked across Brooks, Berrien and Cook Counties and this tornado resulted in 11 fatalities. This overnight into early Sunday morning event produced one more tornado, an EF-1 that struck Lowndes County.

A final round of severe weather moved through Sunday afternoon as a warm front continued to push northward into southeast Alabama and southern Georgia while the main low and trailing cold front pushed eastward across the Florida panhandle and offshore regions. This afternoon round of supercells first produced a tornado in Henry County, AL. An hour and a half after the Henry County tornado, two more tornadoes developed, an EF-2 that struck Clay, Randolph and Calhoun Counties (Georgia) and an EF-1 tornado that hit Franklin County, FL. After this, a long tracked tornado (track length of more than 70 miles) moved across Albany (Dougherty County) and into Worth and Turner Counties, causing extensive damage and five fatalities.

Overall this multi-day event resulted in seven tornadoes, 16 deaths and numerous injuries. Three days of damage surveys were conducted to rate the tornadoes on the Enhanced Fujita scale.