F1 tornado, Draneville to Ellaville, Georgia, November 21, 1997

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. F2113 to 157 mph

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. F3158 to 206 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. F5261 to 318 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

F1

Date

November 21, 1997

Touchdown

9:00 PM EST (02:00 UTC)

Path length

10.0 miles (16.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$35 million

Counties

Marion and Schley counties

Touchdown point

32.220, -84.520

Lift-off point

32.230, -84.220

Record number

1103

Sight survey by a NWS employee showed a severe thunderstorm moved across extreme northern Webster county into Marion and Schley counties. Another storm moved into Webster county further south. These two storms may have merged together. The storm continued across Schley county and caused some damage in Macon county before weakening. There were no actual tornado sightings, but there was a suggestion of rotation/circulation by occurrences of large trees lying at angles to each other. There was only one report of a funnel, but roaring, "freight train" sounds were heard. Radar also indicated a definite rotation as well. Most of the damage may have been due to downburst winds, but there were strong indications of intermittent touchdowns of an F1 tornado. Luckily there were no injuries.

West of Draneville, nearly 50 trees were knocked down and several grain silos and out-buildings were damaged. A church just southeast of Draneville on highway 30 was destroyed. Its roof was blown into a nearby orchard, where 116 pecan trees were also destroyed. The roof of a youth center was lifted off. A gas station/grocery store sustained minor damage.

A state of emergency was declared in Schley county where 103 people were displaced due to the storm. In Ellaville, 5 mobile homes were destroyed, 17 homes and 11 other mobile homes sustained minor to moderate damage, and 19 vehicles were damaged or destroyed. The EMA director reported 500 trees were downed and power outages occurred throughout the town.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

8 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:52 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:25 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:59 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1997 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

8 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.