Thunderstorm Wind — Webster, Georgia

2008-02-17 · near Weston, Webster, Georgia

Event narrative

The Americus Times Recorder reported that thunderstorm winds caused significant damage within Webster county. A total of 12 mobile homes, one brick home, a pole barn, and a sanitation shop sustained minor to moderate damage. The majority of the damage was from Lynn Lane at Georgia Highway 520 northeastward through the county. Numerous trees and power lines were down within this same area.

Wider weather episode

An intense closed upper low was rotating negatively from the southern plains toward the Ohio Valley. A strong cold front in advance of this system was moving across Mississippi into Alabama during the evening of the 17th. A wedge cold front was located across north and central Georgia. Very warm, unstable air was present across southern Alabama and southern Georgia, south of the wedge front. While only marginal instability was present, very strong shear was noted with a 60-70 knot low-level jet evident across Alabama and western and central Georgia. These systems combined to bring a strong squall line of thunderstorms to west and north Georgia during the mid and late afternoon hours. Most of the damage associated with this line of thunderstorms was straight-line wind damage. However, an isolated embedded EF1 tornado within a quasi-linear convective system did occur in west central Georgia in Carroll county. Meanwhile, along the southern end of the convective line, a long-lived supercell tracked from southern Alabama into southwest Georgia, south of Columbus, and continued on a near 100-mile track across west central and central Georgia from just south of Fort Benning to just northeast of Macon. Multiple tornadoes, ranging in strength from EF0 to EF1 were reported within broken segments along the track of this supercell, resulting in considerable damage to trees, power lines, and property. Several injuries were reported during the stronger portion of the tornadic supercell in Taylor and Crawford counties, southwest of Macon.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.9800, -84.6371)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 79556. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.