EF3 Tornado — Brooks, Georgia

2017-01-22 · near Sand Hill, Brooks, Georgia

Event narrative

This was the second tornado to touch down from the same parent tornado that impacted Thomas and northwest Brooks Counties. The tornado touched down at EF-1 strength in northern Brooks County near Georgia Route 122 just west of the Moultrie Highway, snapping trees along the highway. Near the intersection of Georgia Route 133, or the Valdosta Highway, the tornado strengthened to EF-3 blowing out two of the four concrete walls of a small business building. Max winds were estimated near 140 mph. A short distance later, the tornado flipped a strapped-down double wide mobile home and tossed it about 100 feet into a drainage ditch and across Route 122. Two people inside the home were killed. Several nearby trees had their bark stripped off. The tornado then crossed Georgia Route 76 at EF-3 strength and ripped about a third of the second story from a well-built brick home. A short distance up the road, the tornado shifted a wood-framed home about 12 feet off its foundation while removing its second story. This tornado then continued into Cook and Berrien counties. Damage cost was estimated.

Wider weather episode

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.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (30.9998, -83.5841)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 673054. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.