EF1 tornado in Jeff Davis County, Georgia

Tornado December 30, 2021 · Jeff Davis County, Georgia

EF1

Rating

11.7 mi

Whole path

300 yd

Path width

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

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 300 yards (0.17 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF1 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF1 is moderate damage: roofs badly stripped, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned, windows broken, consistent with estimated gusts of 86–110 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

Just after 430 pm, a severe thunderstorm spawned a weak tornado that touched down just west of US 221 at Wooten farm road snapping softwood trees as it continued east northeast at 25 mph along Denton Still road crossing US 221 into Archie Miller road where the tornado damaged the garage doors of a farm outbuilding and removed shingles from the roofs of a few homes. The tornado stayed on the ground as it traveled east northeast strengthening to EF1 intensity. It then caused significant roof loss to a farmhouse and other homes and blew off the metal roof of a storage building just south of Yankee road about a half mile west of Bell Telephone road. Multiple trees and powerlines were down also along Bell Telephone road. The tornado moved east to northeast through Baucom and Brantley roads snapping and uprooting more large trees and toppling power lines before dissipating down to EF0 intensity as it tracked over Alma highway and then lifted and completely dissipated as the severe thunderstorm moved into Appling county before 500 PM.

The wider storm

A broken prefrontal squall line shifted southward into the Ocmulgee and Altamaha River basins during the afternoon and early evening hours. Warm, moist southwesterly flow ahead of the line increased low-level moisture and destabilized the area with afternoon surface-based CAPE around 1000 J/kg and dew points near 70 degrees. The cold front and upper trough approached from the northwest increasing 0-6 km shear to around 40-50 knots with an area of 0-3 km SRH near 200 m2/s2 west-northwest of Waycross, GA. These convective ingredients allowed for a few strong to severe thunderstorms to develop and produce damaging winds and a brief tornado. A severe thunderstorm moving through southern Jeff Davis county produced an EF1 intensity tornado that formed south of Denton, GA. The tornado tracked east-northeastward around 25 mph through Jeff Davis county before dissipating as soon as the severe thunderstorm moved into Appling county.

Began near Denton (31.6900, -82.7300).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 994814. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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