F2 tornado, Halls, Georgia, November 11, 2002

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

November 11, 2002

Touchdown

1:35 AM EST (06:35 UTC)

Path length

12.0 miles (19.3 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.5 million

County

Bartow County

Touchdown point

34.300, -84.980

Lift-off point

34.320, -84.830

Record number

317

A National Weather Service disaster survey team and the Bartow county Emergency Management Director confirmed a 12 mile long west-east path of damage beginning on Barnsley Garden Road near Barnsley Gardens in northwest Bartow county continuing east to just south of Halls Station crossing U.S. Highway 41, then east across Pleasant Valley Road, to just east of Interstate 75 on Crowe Spring Road. The path of damage, up to 500 yards wide in some area, consisted mostly of damage caused by straight line winds with speeds of 80 to 100 mph, but there was definite evidence of tornadic damage of F2 intensity in an isolated area on Clear Creek Road. This portion of the tornado had a path length of 500 yards with a path width of 100 yards. Tornadic damage of F1 intensity was evident along a secondary segment of the damage path at the intersection of Cedar Creek Road and Hazel Road about 3 miles north of Cassville. This portion of the torando had a path length of 500 yards with a path width of 100 yards. Twelve to 15 residental homes suffered major structural damage, seven chicken houses were destroyed, including 7500 chickens, and a barn was completely destroyed. There were also numerous downed trees and power lines along and near the the damage path. Bartow county was one of five counties declared in a state of emergency by the governor.

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 06:27 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:00 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 06:07 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 2002 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

10 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.