EF1 tornado, Huntington, Georgia, April 19, 2015

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 19, 2015

Touchdown

11:38 AM EDT (15:38 UTC)

Lifted

11:40 AM EDT (15:40 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.5 miles (2.3 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Sumter County

Touchdown point

31.964, -84.174

Lift-off point

31.975, -84.152

Record number

1504190938-01

7 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.

• 4 silos completely destroyed. debris from silos carried 1/4 mile into field
• Approx 15 large pecan trees uprooted or large limbs snapped
• 3 trees uprooted. little evidence of damage otherwise
• Two doors to large metal barn blown off.

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

A strong short wave and moderate instability combined to produce widespread thunderstorms across north and central Georgia throughout the daytime on the 19th into the early morning hours of the 20th. Scattered severe thunderstorms with damaging winds occurred across the area. A warm front lifting north across central Georgia during the late morning and early afternoon provided sufficient wind shear to produce several short-lived tornadoes.

A NWS survey team found that a brief EF-1 tornado with maximum winds of 105 MPH and a path width of 100 yards touched down in southern Sumter County. The tornado destroyed 4 large grain silos, throwing debris over a quarter of a mile away into an adjacent field. A nearby metal building had 2 doors blown out, however the farm equipment inside was not damaged. The tornado snapped or uprooted 30-40 trees including some in a large pecan orchard. [04/19/15: Tornado #2, County #1-1, EF1, Sumter, 2015:006].

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 11:59 UTC and running to 19:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 12:55 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), 109 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 15:37 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 2015 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.