EF1 tornado, Grove Level to Banks Crossing, Georgia, November 30, 2016

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

November 30, 2016

Touchdown

3:04 PM EST (20:04 UTC)

Lifted

3:11 PM EST (20:11 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.5 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$65,000

Counties

Jackson and Banks counties

Touchdown point

34.232, -83.502

Lift-off point

34.257, -83.463

Record number

1611301404-01

6 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 90 mph.

• Plexiglass blown off 40ft gas station sign
• Tyvek wrap and material blown off motel under construction
• Trailer store garage doors blown in and roof damaged. Several trailers rolled 50ft.
• Two street signs bent over

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

A strong cold front associated with a deep and sharp upper-level trough swept through the state accompanied by a line of thunderstorms. Despite only marginal instability; ample deep-layer shear and a strong low-level jet resulted in several reports of damaging winds and tornadoes with these thunderstorms. The early morning hours tornado that occurred in Catoosa County was actually associated with a supercell. The other tornadoes were associated with a Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS) during the late morning/afternoon hours of the 30th.

A National Weather Service storm survey team found that an EF1 tornado with maximum winds of 90 MPH moved along a path with a maximum width of 100 yards for 2.3 miles across portions of Jackson County. The tornado began near a poultry supply store on Maysville Road just north of I-85 where it blew over 5, half-ton, unsecured poultry feed bins and downed several large tree branches. The tornado moved northeast paralleling the interstate. Two street signs were bent over along Ridgeway Church Road. The tornado path crossed over a large outlet mall where no apparent damage was noted, however the most severe damage occurred just past the mall where an automobile trailer sales business had two large overhead doors blown in and the front door to the business blown off. Several trailers were rolled about 50 feet and damage to the roof of the building was also noted at this location. The tornado then continued northeastward where it crossed into Banks County. [11/30/16: Tornado #6, County #1/2, EF1, Jackson, 2016:012].

A National Weather Service storm survey team found that an EF1 tornado with maximum winds of 90 MPH moved along a path with a maximum width of 100 yards for 0.50 miles across portions of Banks County. The tornado crossed into Banks County from Jackson County along the I-85 frontage road and continued northeast before ending around the intersection of Highway 441 and East Ridgeway Road where a couple of large business signs were blown out. [11/30/16: Tornado #6, County #2/2, EF1, Banks, 2016:012].

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

21 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:43 UTC, 21 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:42 UTC and running to 20:52 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 Greer radar (KGSP), 136 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:06 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 2016 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

16 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.