EF1 Tornado — Long, Georgia

2020-04-13 · near Walthourville, Long, Georgia

Event narrative

A National Weather Service Storm Damage Survey Team confirmed an EF-1 tornado with an estimated maximum wind speed of 105 mph southwest of Ludowici, Georgia. The path of this tornado was originally detected by high resolution satellite imagery over the remote area of the Griffin Ridge Wildlife Management Area (WMA), which was then confirmed on the ground using damage pictures sent by staff from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The tornado began near Hughes River Road, about 5.5 miles southwest of Ludowici, then moved east-northeast over mostly marsh and uninhabited area, eventually crossing over Check Station Road which enters into the Griffin Ridge WMA from Highway 301. The tornado then continued east-northeast before ending just west of Highway 301. Damage from the tornado primarily consisted of many snapped and uprooted trees.

Wider weather episode

A severe quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) moved through southeast Georgia during the early morning hours of April 13, 2020 ahead of an approaching cold front. The environment ahead of the QLCS was unusually unstable for this time of day and year, with gulf moisture spreading upper 60 F to near 70 F dewpoints into a warm sector across the Southeast United States and mid level lapse rates around 7 C/km helping produce mixed layer convective available potential energy (MLCAPE) as high as 2000 J/kg across Southeast Georgia. Within the warm sector, very strong vertical shear associated with a 50 knot plus low and mid-level jet, effective bulk shear around 70 knots, effective storm relative helicity in the 400-600 m2/s2 range, and VAD wind profiles displaying large, curved low-level hodographs were supportive of well organized convection and potentially embedded supercell thunderstorms in a QLCS capable of producing a prolonged path of damaging winds and strong long-track tornadoes. As the QLCS swept through Southeast Georgia, a few thunderstorms became exceptionally strong supercell thunderstorms embedded within or while becoming partially separated from the main line of thunderstorms, producing straight-line wind damage and a series of tornadoes across a few counties. A total of 4 confirmed tornadoes occurred across Southeast Georgia, mainly from 2 long-lived storms, one of which started in Screven County and continued northeast into South Carolina, producing widespread wind damage and destructive long track or intermittent tornadoes for over 150 miles. The second storm, produced a path of straight-line wind damage and intermittent tornadoes along a path further south, starting outside the area across Wayne County, then tracking east-northeast into Long County and continuing across Liberty County and Bryant County, before shifting offshore along the Southeast Georgia coast.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.6923, -81.8373)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 887488. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.