Tornadoes · United States · Georgia · 1998

F1 tornado, Coolidge, Georgia, September 29, 1998

This F1 tornado ran 1.2 miles across Thomas County on September 29, 1998, touching down at 3:40 PM EDT and reaching 70 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $450,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
F1
Date
September 29, 1998
Touchdown
3:40 PM EDT (19:40 UTC)
Path length
1.2 miles (1.9 km)
Path width
70 yards (64 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$450,000
County
Thomas County
Touchdown point
31.020, -83.850
Lift-off point
31.020, -83.850
Record number
1349

What the Weather Service recorded

An F1 tornado touched down off Bayline Rd near Coolidge which uprooted trees and utility poles, damaged a camper and brick house, and destroyed the Patch Poultry Farm and its 45,000 chickens.

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

The warnings

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

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 forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Slight Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:53 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 air that afternoon

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.

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z

7.7 hours before the tornado, 81 km from the path. September 29, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 1998-09-29Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 675 joules per kilogram, CIN -11, lifted condensation level 827 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 1998-09-29The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 99 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 26 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
675 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-11 J/kg
Surface CAPE
3573 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
827 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
26 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
33 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
99 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
146 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.2
Supercell composite
4.1
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 00:00Z

4.3 hours after it, 81 km from the path. September 30, 1998.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 1998-09-30Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 0 joules per kilogram, CIN -2327, lifted condensation level 744 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 1998-09-30The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 95 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 45 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
0 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-2327 J/kg
Surface CAPE
83 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
744 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
45 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
21 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
95 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
144 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.6 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of September 29, 1998

19 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
September 292:30 AM CDTF1Geneva, AL1.0603$100,000
September 292:40 AM CDTF1Coffee, AL1.080$1.5 million
September 292:45 AM CDTF1Coffee, AL1.050$500,000
September 292:45 AM CDTF1Geneva, AL3.050$50,000
September 296:05 AM EDTF1Mitchell, GA3.0601$500,000
September 299:15 AM CDTF1Bay, FL3.0701$120,000
September 292:00 PM EDTF1Randolph, GA0.5701$500,000
September 294:15 PM EDTF1Colquitt, GA2.0701$550,000
September 294:30 PM EDTF1Sumter, GA0.25012$200,000
September 295:00 PM EDTF1Worth, GA1.790$300,000
September 295:35 PM EDTF1Sumter, GA0.25010$200,000
September 296:10 PM EDTF0Sumter, GA0.250
September 294:20 PM MDTF0Rio Arriba, NM0.130
September 296:30 PM EDTF0Decatur, GA0.640$50,000
September 298:00 PM EDTF0Madison, FL0.540$30,000
September 298:30 PM EDTF1Miller, GA2.0802$750,000
September 297:31 PM CDTF0Barton, KS1.0110
September 297:33 PM CDTF0Barton, KS1.0110
September 2912:30 AM EDTF2Suwannee, FL2.01005$600,000

What this means

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.

Sources

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