EF1 tornado, Homer to Nancytown, Georgia, May 14, 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 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

May 14, 2014

Touchdown

12:03 AM EDT (04:03 UTC)

Lifted

12:13 AM EDT (04:13 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

7.8 miles (12.5 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Banks County

Touchdown point

34.354, -83.500

Lift-off point

34.462, -83.464

Record number

1405142203-01

27 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 107 mph.

• several trees snapped. this one was hollow. no visible damage to house nearby. inflow winds
• numerous trees snapped and uprooted. in a convergent line. def tornado
• Numerous trees snapped facing NE
• numerous trees snapped on golf course

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

A vigorous spring system pushed across the Southeast on the 14th and 15th, with a cold front extending from the Ohio Valley into the southeast states. Moderate instability combined with moderate shallow and deep-layer shear allowed of widespread showers and thunderstorms, several of which became severe with several reports of wind damage. Two tornadoes occurred as well. Training thunderstorms occurred over Bleckley County the evening of the 14th with intense rainfall of 4 to 6 inches. Isolated flash flooding caused some minor damage to two homes in the Cochran area.

A National Weather Service survey team determined that an EF-1 tornado touched down to the north of Homer in a heavily wooded area where it snapped the trunks of numerous mature hardwood trees as well as causing minor roof damage to one home. The torando was widest at the beginning of the path. It continued moving quickly to the northeast where more trees were downed and snapped along the track. Four additional homes also received minor roof damage. The tornado produced EF-0 damage to trees before lifting in a wooded area in northeast Banks County.|[05/15/14: Tornado #1, County #1-1, EF1, Banks, 2014:007].

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:49 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.

Toccoa (TOC), 27 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Greer radar (KGSP), 127 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 04:02 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

8 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.