EF1 tornado, Hadden, Georgia, March 5, 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

March 5, 2013

Touchdown

7:02 PM EST (00:02 UTC)

Lifted

7:04 PM EST (00:04 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.5 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Glascock County

Touchdown point

33.269, -82.611

Lift-off point

33.274, -82.585

Record number

1303051802-01

5 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.

• First visual confirmation of tornado.
• Trees were down and fell into two mobile home structures.
• Based on construction...was limited to EF1 damage. Also damage to tombstones in cemetary.

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

A strong closed surface low moved through the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys on the 5th. This pushed a cold front across Georgia during the afternoon and evening hours. A squall line ahead of the front state, with damage occurring in northwest Georgia in the early afternoon and continuing into central Georgia through the mid-evening hours. Widespread wind damage, mainly in the form of fallen trees, occurred, but one tornado was observed as well in Glascock County.

A National Weather Service Storm Survey determined that an EF-1 tornado touched down northwest of Gibson. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted along the 1.5 mile path. As the tornado crossed Georgia State Highway 171, it ripped off 20 percent of the metal roof from a home residence, tossed a camper trailer 50 feet, and knocked two mobile homes off their foundations. The occupant of one home had to be rescued. The worst damage occurred near the intersection of Georgia Highway 171 and Magnolia Church Road where 60 percent of the Magnolia Baptist Church roof was ripped off, and the brick-walled fellowship hall on the west end of the church was completely destroyed. Numerous tombstones and other structures at the adjoining cemetery near the church were also damaged.|[03/05/13: Tornado #1, County #1-1, EF1, Glascock, 2013:003].

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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:52 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), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:04 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

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.