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EF2 tornado in Burke County, Georgia

Tornado April 13, 2020 · Burke County, Georgia

EF2
Rating
16.5 mi
Path length
700 yd
Path width
EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 700 yards (0.40 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 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 tornado touched down northeast of Vidette in Burke County, GA near Highway 80. The tornado continued in a general northeastern direction, crossing Quaker Road, US 25, and dissipated near Highway 56 and Collins Road. The tornado produced mainly EF-0 and EF-1 damage along its path, but reached EF-2 intensity in several locations with peak wind speeds of 125 mph. The tornado had a path length of approximately 17 miles with a path width of around 700 yards.

The tornado uprooted or snapped a significant amount of trees along its entire path. Along Highway 80, a former auto service cinder block building had its bay doors blown in, causing the roof to lift off and some of the block walls to collapse. Along Coursey Road, nearly all of the pine trees snapped in a field and a couple of houses had significant roof damage. A couple of pecan groves had significant damage with many pecan trees snapped or uprooted near Quaker Road and Taylor Road. West of Story Mill Road near George Perkins Road, there were an extensive amount of hardwood trees snapped and uprooted, with many of them falling on a home and vehicle. Major damage also occurred at a dairy farm along Highway 25, where metal posts supporting a canopy bent and snapped over a feeding area, a feed shed had its roof torn off and the metal framing bent and several other structures on the property had significant roof damage or total roof loss.

The wider storm

A squall line rolled through the region during the early morning hours of April 13, 2020. Strong instability and shear led to numerous severe thunderstorm wind gusts along with several tornadoes. Across East Central GA, one EF-2 tornado occurred.

Began near Torbit Station (33.1066, -82.1918).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 884324. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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