EF1 tornado, Owensboro, Georgia, December 15, 2007

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 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

EF1

Date

December 15, 2007

Touchdown

9:30 PM EST (02:30 UTC)

Lifted

9:31 PM EST (02:31 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.8 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$5,000

County

Wilcox County

Touchdown point

31.870, -83.464

Lift-off point

31.878, -83.454

Record number

0712152030-01

A strong negatively titled upper atmospheric disturbance and associated strong cold front were moving through the southeast states late on December 15th. Unseasonably warm conditions had prevailed across this region of the country throughout the preceding days, while much colder weather and significant winter weather prevailed to the northwest across the southern plains and midwest. A wedge of cool air was intensifying across north central and northeast Georgia, with the front marking this wedge of cooler air lying across central and southeast Georgia. Meanwhile, deep coastal low development along the mid-Atlantic coast was underway as the upper trough rotated into the southeast states. The combination of these strong dynamics, a strong low-level jet, and unseasonably warm, moist air across southeast Georgia in advance of the front and upper disturbance resulted in the development of thunderstorms across south Georgia. As the storms moved northeast and encountered the wedge front, they quickly became rotating supercells spawning three tornadoes in a one-hour period across the southeast portion of the Peachtree City, Georgia Weather Forecast Office County Warning Area.

A survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, GA concluded that a tornado touched down approximately two miles west of Owensboro in southeast Wilcox county. The tornado moved rapidly northeast and lifted approximately 0.5 mile to the west-northwest of Owensboro. The tornado path width was estimated to be approximately 100 yards wide. The roof was ripped off an old dairy shed and a cinder block attached to the shed was completely destroyed. While the tornado lifted shortly after touching down, wind damage, consistent with 70 to 100 mph wind speeds, continued northeast across the county toward Abbeville.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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 Robins AFB radar (KJGX), 90 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:32 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.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2007 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.