Tornadoes · United States · Georgia · 2000
F1 tornado, Zebulon to Orchard Hill, Georgia, April 3, 2000
From Zebulon to Orchard Hill, this F1 tornado ran 7.5 miles across Pike, Spalding and Lamar counties on April 3, 2000, touching down at 8:35 PM EDT and reaching 50 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $1.0 million 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.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- April 3, 2000
- Touchdown
- 8:35 PM EDT (00:35 UTC)
- Path length
- 7.5 miles (12.1 km)
- Path width
- 50 yards (46 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $1.0 million
- Counties
- Pike, Spalding and Lamar counties
- Touchdown point
- 33.130, -84.300
- Lift-off point
- 33.180, -84.180
- Record number
- 714
What the Weather Service recorded
Sight survey by NWS employees, together with newspaper and public reports, confirmed an F0 to F1 tornado touched down in northeastern PIke county near the intersection of Gresham Road and Kendrick Road. It crossed the extreme northwest corner of Lamar county and moved into extreme southeast Spalding county before lifting. The storm path had a total length of approximately 7.5 miles and an average width of 50 yards, but was occasionally as wide as 100 yards. Four homes sustained damage. Most observed damage was shingles blown off roofs or fallen trees and limbs on houses.
As the storm continued from Pike county across the extreme northwest corner of Lamar county, large tree limbs were knocked down on another house. One man was injured when struck by a falling tree limb on Vaughn Road. Sections of a fence were torn down and other trees and debris were found in a converging pattern caused by a rotating storm.
The storm weakened as it left Lamar county and the tornado lifted shortly after entering the extreme southeast part of Spalding county. The largely rural area sustained very little damage, mainly to trees and tree limbs, but the same converging pattern of debris was noted.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
9 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:26 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07:36 UTC | 08:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FFC |
| 00:17 UTC | 00:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | FFC |
| 00:26 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | FFC |
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 Moderate Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:04 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 surface observations
Peachtree City (FFC), 38 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23:53 UTC | 70 | 64 | 300° 18 kt | 24 | 1008.5 | RA |
| 00:53 UTC | 59 | 57.2 | 320° 14 kt | 17 | 1011.5 | |
| 01:53 UTC | 57.2 | 53.6 | 320° 8 kt | 1012.2 |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 3, 2000
28 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 3 | 2:00 AM EDT | F2 | Polk, GA | 6.0 | 70 | 6 | $1.0 million | |
| April 3 | 3:00 AM EDT | F1 | Cherokee, GA | 7.0 | 100 | $1.1 million | ||
| April 3 | 3:15 AM EDT | F1 | Gwinnett, GA | 4.0 | 150 | $1.5 million | ||
| April 3 | 4:55 AM EDT | F1 | Pickens, SC | 3.0 | 50 | |||
| April 3 | 4:04 AM CDT | F1 | Chambers, TX | 2.0 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| April 3 | 4:08 AM CDT | F1 | Jefferson, TX | 2.0 | 20 | 1 | $100,000 | |
| April 3 | 4:20 AM CDT | F1 | Jefferson, TX | 1.5 | 20 | $3.0 million | ||
| April 3 | 5:10 AM CDT | F1 | Calcasieu Parish, LA | 5.0 | 20 | 5 | $100,000 | |
| April 3 | 5:45 AM CDT | F1 | Jefferson Davis Parish, LA | 3.0 | 20 | $250,000 | ||
| April 3 | 5:50 AM CDT | F0 | Jefferson Davis Parish, LA | 2.0 | 10 | $40,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:00 AM CDT | F0 | Acadia Parish, LA | 7.0 | 20 | $100,000 | ||
| April 3 | 6:28 AM CDT | F1 | Saint Landry Parish, LA | 1.0 | 20 | 1 | $50,000 | |
| April 3 | 7:40 AM CDT | F1 | West Feliciana Parish, LA | 0.7 | 50 | $1,000 | ||
| April 3 | 7:45 AM CDT | F1 | West Feliciana Parish, LA | 3.0 | 50 | $200,000 | ||
| April 3 | 8:30 AM CDT | F1 | Livingston Parish, LA | 0.5 | 30 | $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 8:40 AM CDT | F1 | East Baton Rouge Parish, LA | 0.3 | 20 | $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 8:45 AM CDT | F1 | Saint Helena Parish, LA | 6.0 | 70 | $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 9:00 AM CDT | F0 | Pike, MS | 0.2 | 20 | $20,000 | ||
| April 3 | 9:40 AM CDT | F0 | Assumption Parish, LA | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| April 3 | 11:22 AM CDT | F0 | Saint Tammany Parish, LA | 0.1 | 30 | |||
| April 3 | 11:39 AM CDT | F1 | Fayette, AL | 3.0 | 50 | 1 | $90,000 | |
| April 3 | 12:20 PM CDT | F2 | Tuscaloosa, AL | 11.1 | 300 | $90,000 | ||
| April 3 | 12:25 PM CDT | F1 | Choctaw, AL | 11.0 | 200 | $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 12:44 PM CDT | F0 | Jefferson, AL | 3.0 | 40 | $20,000 | ||
| April 3 | 1:09 PM CDT | F1 | Jefferson, AL | 5.7 | 350 | $4.0 million | ||
| April 3 | 1:53 PM CDT | F0 | Chilton, AL | 1.0 | 40 | $50,000 | ||
| April 3 | 2:23 PM CDT | F0 | Coosa, AL | 1.0 | 30 | $10,000 | ||
| April 3 | 8:30 PM CDT | F0 | Coffee, AL | 0.0 | 0 |
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.