EF1 tornado, Methvins to Flintside, 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

11:00 PM EDT (03:00 UTC)

Lifted

11:37 PM EDT (03:37 UTC)

On the ground

37 minutes

Path length

25.1 miles (40.4 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$380,000

Crop damage

$250,000

Counties

Sumter, Dooly and Wilcox counties

Touchdown point

32.100, -84.020

Lift-off point

32.030, -83.590

Record number

0904102100-01

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 an EF1 tornado touched down in extreme northeast Sumter county, approximately three miles east-southeast of Methvins and continued on an east-southeastward track for approximately 25 miles across extreme southern Dooly county and into extreme northwest Wilcox county before lifting approximately five miles north of Seville in Wilcox county. This was the first of three tornadoes to touch down in Sumter county the evening of April 10th. Within Sumter county, this tornado had a path length of about 2.5 miles. It was also apparent that this tornado was spawned from the same supercell thunderstorm that spawned two earlier tornadoes in Chattahoochee county. The maximum path width of this tornado was determined to be 250 yards with maximum winds estimated at 110 mph. Damage in Sumter county was mostly confined to hundreds of downed trees.

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City confirmed that the EF1 tornado, that originally touched down in far northeastern Sumter county three miles east-southeast of Methvins, continued on an east-southeastward track across far southern Dooly county and into extreme northwest Wilcox county, lifting approximately five miles north of Seville in Wilcox county. The tornado tracked around 21 miles within Dooly county. The maximum path width was determined to be 250 yards and the maximum winds were estimated at 110 mph. The tornado passed just north of Drayton and just south of Vienna in Dooly county. Several hundred trees were either uprooted or snapped along the path of the tornado. A number of pecan trees in an orchard south of Vienna were destroyed. Two site built homes suffered significant roof damage from downed trees on the structures. Two mobiles homes were also damaged by the high winds of the tornado. Several barns and outbuildings were destroyed along the path of the tornado. Several irrigation systems were rolled over. A small radio tower in the eastern part of Dooly county was also blown over. No deaths or injuries were reported.

A damage survey conducted by the Dooly County Emergency Management Director confirmed that yet another, weaker EF0 tornado was tracking across Dooly county, just north of Vienna, as the longer-lived EF1 tornado was tracking across all of southern Dooly county south of Vienna. This EF0 tornado touched down approximately two miles north of Vienna and traveled east-northeast approximately six miles before lifting. This tornado was determined to have a maximum path width of 100 yards with maximum winds estimated at 85 mph. Spotty damage was observed along the path of the tornado. A chicken house was destroyed, one home suffered minor roof damage, and a tin roof was peeled off a barn. From 15 to 20 trees were uprooted or snapped along the path of the tornado.

A survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City confirmed that the EF1 tornado, that initially touched down in far northeast Sumter county, continued across far southern Dooly county, before ending just inside Wilcox county, approximately five miles north of Seville. The tornado tracked a little over one mile within Wilcox county with a maximum path width of 250 yards and maximum winds estimated at 110 mph. Within Wilcox county, only around 100 downed trees were noted along the path of the tornado.

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that yet a third EF1 tornado touched down in Sumter county. This was a long-lived tornado and tracked across three counties, Sumter, Crisp, and Wilcox, for an approximate path length of 33 miles. This tornado touched down in far southeast Sumter county in the Cobb community and crossed Lake Blackshear into Crisp county about three miles east-southeast of Cobb. The tornado was determined to have a maximum path width of 200 yards with maximum winds estimated at 100 mph. Within Sumter county, one home was destroyed and 45 suffered minor to moderate damage. The damage was largely the result of downed trees on the structures. Two to three dozen trees and several power lines were down along the path of the tornado.

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

42 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:18 UTC, 42 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:00 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 0.05 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), 80 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:00 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.