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EF0 tornado in Cobb County, Georgia

Tornado January 11, 2020 · Cobb County, Georgia

EF0

Rating

3.9 mi

Whole path

400 yd

Path width

$100K

Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Paulding County → Cobb County; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 400 yards (0.23 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF0 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF0 is light damage: shingles and siding peeled, gutters torn, branches broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 65–85 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A National Weather Service survey team found that an EF0 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 85 mph and a maximum path width of 400 yards that touched down north of Hiram in Paulding County moved east-northeast into western Cobb County near the intersection of Poplar Springs Road and Puryear Path. The tornado caused mostly sporadic, weak damage as it crossed Mill creek and Corner Road SW but downed 15 to 20 trees in the Oakleigh subdivision near the intersection of Lost Mountain Road and Kingsbridge Pass before ending along Oakleigh Manor Drive SW. [01/11/20: Tornado #1, County #2/2, EF-0, Paulding/Cobb, 2020:001].

The wider storm

A strong cold front associated with a deep upper-level trough moved through the region. A line of strong to severe thunderstorms ahead of the cold front swept into northwest Georgia during the afternoon and progressed southeastward across north and central Georgia through the late afternoon into the evening before weakening and pushing into south Georgia and the Carolinas during the early morning hours. Numerous reports of damaging thunderstorm winds and a few isolated tornadoes were received.

Began near Lost Mtn (33.9191, -84.7236).

Other tornadoes from the same storm system

2 more tornadoes the National Weather Service filed under this storm episode.

EF1 Upson County EF0 Fannin County

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 875803. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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