F2 tornado, Donald to Richmond Hill, Georgia, April 9, 1998

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 mph

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

3. F2113 to 157 mphthis tornado

   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

F2

Date

April 9, 1998

Touchdown

6:35 AM EDT (10:35 UTC)

Path length

24.5 miles (39.4 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

4

Injuries

31

Property damage

$38 million

Counties

Long, Liberty and Bryan counties

Touchdown point

31.830, -81.780

Lift-off point

31.930, -81.320

Record number

820

Tornado touched down in the Rye Patch Community where 3 people died (all were in mobile homes).Ten mobile homes were destroyed and two others were damaged along with a roof blown off a block house. Numerous trees were uprooted or snapped off above the ground.

F2 tornado moved from Long County into Liberty County, which encompasses much of Fort Stewart Army Base. One soldier was killed while in an administrative building and seven others were injured. Seven buildings were destroyed while another fifty-five(55) suffered different degrees of damage.

Several trees uprooted or snapped off as F1 ended cycle of destruction from the parent thunderstorm that moved from Long County through Liberty to the western edge of Bryan.

The deaths

4 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS CHS issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:19 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:50 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 11:00 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 Charleston,SC radar (KCLX), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:37 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 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.