EF2 tornado, Valdosta, Georgia, December 29, 2014

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

December 29, 2014

Touchdown

11:26 AM EST (16:26 UTC)

Lifted

11:30 AM EST (16:30 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.2 km)

Path width

180 yards (165 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

9

Property damage

$750,000

County

Lowndes County

Touchdown point

30.816, -83.283

Lift-off point

30.819, -83.271

Record number

1412291026-01

A band of light to moderate rain was moving across the area on December 29th in association with a surface cold front. Along the leading edge of the area of rain, a shallow, mini-supercell developed and moved into Lowndes County, Georgia. No lightning was observed with the cell; the tops of the showers were generally below 15,000 feet. As the cell moved over Valdosta, a brief tornado spun up and produced damage up to EF2 intensity on the south side of Valdosta. This was the first tornado to directly affect the city of Valdosta since 1997.||This was an unusual case as atmospheric conditions were not very favorable, though not totally prohibitive, for significant tornadoes. Limited atmospheric instability reduced the overall intensity of showers, despite the one that tracked through Lowndes County, and most of the area just saw a few hours of steady, light to moderate rain.

The tornado first developed just north of Langdales Pond and Old Clyattville Road on the south side of the city of Valdosta. Some of the most severe damage was near the beginning of the track as the tornado impacted Langdale Forest Products along Old Clyattville Road. Several large metal buildings were severely damaged or destroyed and the damage to those buildings was assigned the EF2 rating that is the maximum for this tornado. Some vehicles parked near those buildings were tossed around 70 yards across the street. Two rail cars nearby were also tipped over. The remainder of the track consisted of EF0 or EF1 damage as the tornado moved east and eventually dissipated near south Patterson Street and Dampier Street. That damage in the remainder of the track was a mixture of damage to buildings, trees, and power lines. Monetary damage was estimated.||This was the first tornado to directly affect the city of Valdosta since an F1-rated tornado on November 1, 1997.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 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 Moody AFB radar (KVAX), 28 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:26 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 2014 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.