EF1 tornado, Ephesus, Georgia, August 18, 2013

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

August 18, 2013

Touchdown

7:41 PM EDT (23:41 UTC)

Lifted

7:42 PM EDT (23:42 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

15 yards (14 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$9,000

County

Heard County

Touchdown point

33.414, -85.284

Lift-off point

33.418, -85.278

Record number

1308181741-01

3 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 105 mph.

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

A weak warm front was stalled across central Georgia early on the 18th, and lifted north during the day as a wedge of cool high pressure remained in place across northeast Georgia. An area of low pressure along the Louisiana coast also drifted northeast during the day. All these factors combined to produce several showers and thunderstorms across all but northeast Georgia, with isolated damaging wind reports. Isolated flash flooding occurred in south Toombs County due to intense rainfall. Because of the low-level shear associated with the approaching surface low from Louisiana, one thunderstorm was briefly able to spin up a weak tornado in Heard County.

A National Weather Service survey team determined that an EF0 tornado touched down just inside the Georgia-Alabama state line in Heard County. A mobile home sustained roof damage and its porch was destroyed as the tornado tracked northeastward, paralleling Upper Caldwell Road as it strengthened to an EF1. The most significant damage was as the tornado crossed Upper Caldwell Road, snapping dozens of trees. The tornado left a path 0.4 miles in length, weakening back to an EF0 with tree limbs down before it lifted. |[08/18/13: Tornado #1, County #1-1, EF1, Heard, 2013:013].

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

1 minute of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:40 UTC, 1 minute before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:55 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:58 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 Atlanta radar (KFFC), 67 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:42 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 2013 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

1 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.