Tornadoes · United States · Georgia · 2006
F0 tornado, Hinesville, Georgia, July 29, 2006
This F0 tornado ran 0.0 miles across Liberty County on July 29, 2006, touching down at 6:45 PM EDT. It killed nobody, and did $2,000 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.
F040 to 72 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
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
- F0
- Date
- July 29, 2006
- Touchdown
- 6:45 PM EDT (22:45 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.0 miles (0.0 km)
- Path width
- 0 yards (0 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $2,000
- County
- Liberty County
- Touchdown point
- 31.850, -81.600
- Lift-off point
- 31.850, -81.600
- Record number
- 777
What the Weather Service recorded
Spotter witnessed a car with people inside picked up in a rotating fashion 6 ft in the air and then dropped. Damage to the car. No injuries.
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:56 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | CHS |
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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 20:07 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 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.
Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 12:00Z
10.8 hours before the tornado, 150 km from the path. July 29, 2006.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1547 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -33 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 214 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 772 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 10 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 4 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 16 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 9 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.7 K/km
The radar
The Charleston,SC radar (KCLX), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:45 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:45 UTC | TORNADO | Hinesville | Liberty, GA | SPOTTER WITNESSED A CAR WITH PEOPLE ONBOARD PICKUP UP IN A ROTATING FASHION 6 FT IN THE AIR AND THEN DROPPED... DAMAGING THE CAR. THE FAMILY INSIDE THE CAR WAS SHAKEN UP BUT NOT APPARENTLY INJURED. |
| 23:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Hinesville | Liberty, GA | SEVERAL TREES BLOWN DOWN IN THE HINESVILLE AREA WITH ONE OF THE TREES FALLING ON A HOUSE |
| 23:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Richmond Hill | Bryan, GA | TREES AND LIMBS DOWN OFF HIGHWAY 17 NEAR RICHMOND HILL. MINOR FLOODING REPORTED. TIME ESTIMATED BASED ON RADAR. |
| 23:48 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 7 Sw Savannah | Chatham, GA | TREE DOWN AT CORNER OF HWY 204 AND GATEWAY BLVD. FORWARDED BY POLICE STATION. |
| 00:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Skidaway Island | Chatham, GA | TREES DOWN ON SKIDAWAY ISLAND. SMALL HAIL ALSO FELL. MINOR FLOODING REPORTED. |
| 00:20 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | Skidaway Island | Chatham, GA | AIRPLANE PILOT ESTIMATED 60-65 MPH WINDS ON SKIDAWAY ISLAND. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2006 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 29, 2006
2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
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.