EF1 tornado, Warm Spgs to Mclendon Crossroads, Georgia, May 26, 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

May 26, 2015

Touchdown

3:41 PM EDT (19:41 UTC)

Lifted

3:55 PM EDT (19:55 UTC)

On the ground

14 minutes

Path length

9.8 miles (15.7 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Meriwether County

Touchdown point

32.890, -84.710

Lift-off point

32.995, -84.601

Record number

1505261341-01

23 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 95 mph.

• several trees uprooted along the highway. facing northeast.
• numerous trees snapped in a 200 yard wide swath
• other tree limbs down. inflow?

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

Marginal Risk (SPC) day produced rather widespread wind damage across west-central Georgia during the late afternoon hours of the 26th. An EF-1 tornado was confirmed north of Warm Springs in Meriwether county. An upper level wave moving east from AL/Gulf coast region spawned widespread convection that became an evident QLCS that tracked west to east across GA during the afternoon hours. The most intense/severe storms were generally south of I-20 and west of I-75.

A tornado briefly touched down within a cluster of severe thunderstorms just west of Warm Springs /along Highway 194/ in southern Meriwether county. Much of the damage was to trees, either snapped or uprooted as the tornado tracked northeast before lifting just northwest of Woodbury. The worst of the damage occurred between Roosevelt Highway and Juke Line Road where numerous large trees were snapped or uprooted. Maximum winds of 90 MPH was determined based on this area and damage. [05/26/15: Tornado #1, County #1-1, EF1, Meriwether, 2015:008].

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 Marginal Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 16:27 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 Atlanta radar (KFFC), 48 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:41 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

12 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.