EF0 Tornado — Barrow, Georgia

2017-03-21 · near Winder Arpt, Barrow, Georgia

Event narrative

A National Weather Service survey team found that a brief tornado developed along the leading edge of a larger swath of strong thunderstorm winds. The EF-0 tornado with maximum winds of 85 MPH and a maximum path width of 100 Yards began near the Barrow County Airport east of Winder along Sunset Drive. The tornado travelled between .1 and .2 miles along Sunset Drive snapping or uprooting several large trees and destroying a barn. Pieces of the barn were carried nearly a quarter of a mile. [03/21/17: Tornado #1, County #1/1, EF-0, Barrow, 2017:031].

Wider weather episode

A large mesoscale convective complex developed along a cold front across central and southern Tennessee in response to a series of short waves sweeping through the region. These thunderstorms encountered an unstable and moderately-sheared atmosphere as they moved south into north Georgia producing numerous, widespread reports of large hail and damaging thunderstorm winds as well as two isolated tornadoes.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (33.9807, -83.6548)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 689915. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.