EF1 tornado, Omega to Brookfield, Georgia, January 4, 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

January 4, 2015

Touchdown

11:45 AM EST (16:45 UTC)

Lifted

11:49 AM EST (16:49 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

0.3 miles (0.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$10,000

County

Tift County

Touchdown point

31.417, -83.395

Lift-off point

31.420, -83.392

Record number

1501041045-01

38 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TAE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• roof off, wall peeled off, debris scattered E-W
• side of porch ripped off lying N-S
• trees snapped in a converging direction, sign on N side of 82 bent towards the east, opposite of bent sign on S side of 82, also showing convergence of winds
• door to front of church cracked along seem

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

A strong upper level trough and cold front moved through the area during the morning and early afternoon hours. A squall line accompanied the front, and a few tornadoes and instances of straight line wind damage were reported.

A brief EF1 tornado touched down. A portion of a screened-in porch was blown down, and a large portion of the roof of a small, old, barn building was removed. There were also some 8-12 inch diameter pine trees snapped at their trunks. Max winds were estimated at 95 mph.

In addition to several downed trees, there was substantial damage to the roof at a church in Brookfield. During their Sunday morning Service, church members quickly took cover under their pews when the wind became loud and their heavy front door was torn apart. The main damage occurred when the steeple fell to the ground. Several shingles were stripped from the roof, and two church storage sheds were destroyed. Miraculously no one was injured. There were several more trees down with this tornado than the first one, including large pine trees (2-3 ft diameter) and large magnolia trees. Max winds were estimated at 100 mph.

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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:05 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 Moody AFB radar (KVAX), 70 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:47 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

10 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.