EF1 tornado, Coney to Owensboro, Georgia, April 10, 2009

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

April 10, 2009

Touchdown

12:23 AM EDT (04:23 UTC)

Lifted

1:17 AM EDT (05:17 UTC)

On the ground

54 minutes

Path length

25.3 miles (40.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$700,000

Crop damage

$500,000

Counties

Crisp and Wilcox counties

Touchdown point

31.950, -83.830

Lift-off point

31.870, -83.410

Record number

0904102223-01

1 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A vigorous upper closed low was moving from the mid-south and Mississippi valley region into the mid-Atlantic and southeast U.S. A strong cold front accompanied the upper system. A strong low-level jet in advance of these weather systems transported warm, moist Gulf air northward into the region. With strong dynamics, hence shear, combined with an unusually moist, unstable atmosphere, the atmosphere was primed for a major weather outbreak. One round of thunderstorms passed through north Georgia during the early morning hours. A few minor severe weather events accompanied this system in northwest Georgia. Partial clearing followed the morning convection, allowing temperatures to soar into the mid 70s across much of north and central Georgia in advance of the main weather system. Scattered to numerous discrete supercell thunderstorms developed during mid-afternoon in northwest Georgia and progressed east and southeast across the remaining portions of the county warning area during the evening hours. Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes lingered into the early morning hours of the 11th across the southern counties of central Georgia. During the eight hour period from 5 pm EDT on April 10th to 1 am EDT on April 11th, a total of 14 tornadoes were confirmed to have touched down in north and central Georgia causing millions in damages. While some injuries were observed, no deaths were observed.

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that the third EF1 tornado to touch down in Sumter county the evening of April 10th, continued on a sporadic, but long path, across Crisp and into Wilcox county before lifting. The tornado crossed into Crisp county at Lake Blackshear, just south of the Georgia Veterans State Park. The tornado entered the county as an EF1 with a maximum path width of 200 yards. However, as the tornado crossed the lake into western Crisp county, it weakened to an EF0 with a maximum path width of 100 yards. Maximum winds were estimated at 100 mph as the tornado entered the county, but quickly weakened to 80 mph as it progressed across the lake. The path length within Crisp county was approximately 14 miles. Within Crisp county, 20 homes sustained minor to moderate damage. This damage was primarily the result of large downed trees on the structures. At least two to three dozen trees were down along the path of the tornado within Crisp county.

Data gathered from the Wilcox County Emergency Management Director and from a damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia concluded that the EF1 tornado that began in the Cobb community of far southeast Sumter county and tracked east-southeast across Crisp county, continued into far southwest and south central Wilcox county before lifting. The total path length of the tornado was around 33 miles. Damage was sporadic along the path of the tornado. The tornado tracked approximately 12 miles within Wilcox county and remained as a weaker EF0 tornado with a maximum path width of 100 yards and maximum winds of 80 mph. Within Wilcox county, most of the damage was concentrated in the Owensboro area, with just isolated tree damage from Hatley, along the Crisp/Wilcox county line to the west side of Ownesboro. One home at the intersection of County Roads 60 and 61, just southwest of Owensboro, suffered considerable damage. A mobile home was destroyed just east of the intersection of Georgia Highways 233 and 238. Finally, considerable damage was noted to a pecan orchard east of County Road 63 or about one mile east-southeast of Owensboro, near the point where the tornado lifted.

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

7 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:16 UTC, 7 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:01 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:12 UTC and running to 06:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:30 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), 89 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:25 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 2009 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

63 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 64 of them

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.