EF0 tornado, Snow Spg to Unadilla, Georgia, March 12, 2010

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   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

EF0

Date

March 12, 2010

Touchdown

4:48 PM EST (21:48 UTC)

Lifted

4:49 PM EST (21:49 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Dooly County

Touchdown point

32.230, -83.750

Lift-off point

32.232, -83.724

Record number

1003121548-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 70 mph.

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

A deep closed upper low was moving southeast from the middle Tennessee Valley into the southeast United States. An associated frontal system and low pressure area was moving from the eastern Gulf coastal region northeastward along the southeastern U.S. seaboard. An unusually warm, moist atmosphere was present across the southeast U.S. in advance of this weather system. Although overall instability was marginal, strong shear was present with this weather system. Bands of showers and thunderstorms tracked across north and central Georgia throughout the day. While most of the storms were non-severe, one storm in northwest Georgia produced a significant downburst. The storm simultaneously produced large hail, which when combined with the downburst winds produced a significant path of damage across Whitfield county. Another storm during the evening spawned a brief EF0 tornado in the central Georgia county of Dooly, with very minimal damage noted.

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that a very weak and brief EF0 tornado caused minor damage just south of Unadilla. The tornado touched down near the intersection of Taylor Street just west of Interstate-75 and continued approximately one mile east-northeast to a point on the east side of Interstate-75 near the intersection of 3rd District Road and Browns Chapel Road. The maximum path width was determined to be 100 yards wide with maximum winds estimated to be 75 mph. Near the touchdown point of the tornado, a tree fell causing minor damage to the corner of a home. Another nearby home lost a few shingles. As the tornado continued east, it crossed through a horse arena, where some tin roofing was torn from a portion of one row of horse stalls. A large adjacent billboard was blown over on a car. At the end point of the tornado, a tree top was broken out.

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.

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 20:02 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.

Warner Robins Afb (WRB), 47 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Robins AFB radar (KJGX), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:45 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.

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 2010 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

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.