EF1 tornado, Rivoli to Arkwright, Georgia, April 16, 2011

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 16, 2011

Touchdown

6:02 AM EDT (10:02 UTC)

Lifted

6:06 AM EDT (10:06 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.6 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2.0 million

County

Bibb County

Touchdown point

32.863, -83.716

Lift-off point

32.900, -83.676

Record number

1104160402-01

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 EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

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

A deep, slow moving, negatively tiltled and highly diffluent upper trough was sweeping from the south central into the southeast U.S. during the April 15th and 16th period. A strong Pacific cold front accompanied the upper-level trough. An unseasonably warm, moist and unstable air mass was present across the southeast U.S. in advance of this weather system. An initial line of strong to severe thunderstorms began to move into northwest Georgia during the late afternoon hours of April 15th. As the line progressed further into the state, it evolved more in a large area of showers and thunderstorms with discrete supercells across especially central Georgia. These supercells produced damaging winds, hail, and three tornadoes. As the event continued into the early morning hours of the 16th, the severity decreased, but widespread rain and thunderstorms, along with isolated severe thunderstorms continued until around daybreak. In addition to the severe weather events, the prolonged and heavy rain event resulted in flash flooding along north Atlanta metropolitan area creeks and streams.

A damage survey conducted by meteorologists from the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that an EF1 tornado touched down approximately five miles northwest of Macon and tracked 2.5 to 3.5 miles lifting approximately five miles north-northwest of Macon. The tornado tracked through the northern suburbs of Macon between Interstate-475 and Interstate-75, just south of the Monroe county line yet lifting just before reaching the Jones county line. The maximum path width was determined to be 500 yards. The maximum wind in the tornado was determined to be 110 mph. Extensive damage was reported from a largely residential area of Bibb county. From 20 to 25 homes sustained sustained damage. Four of these homes were destroyed and another 10 of these suffered major damage. A motel and an adjacent commercial building suffered roof damage. Two storage buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged. At least 200 trees were uprooted, snapped, or blown over by the tornado. There were no fatalities or injuries reported from this tornado.||[04/15-04/16/11: Tornado #3, County #1-1, EF1, Bibb, 2011:009].

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 09:48 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 10:00 UTC and running to 13:43 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 General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:22 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), 40 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:00 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 2011 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

56 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.