EF2 tornado, Box Spgs to Poplar Xrds, Georgia, April 27, 2017

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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

April 27, 2017

Touchdown

1:15 PM EDT (17:15 UTC)

Lifted

1:47 PM EDT (17:47 UTC)

On the ground

32 minutes

Path length

21.7 miles (34.9 km)

Path width

700 yards (640 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$317,000

Counties

Talbot and Taylor counties

Touchdown point

32.541, -84.674

Lift-off point

32.682, -84.343

Record number

1704271115-01

125 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• shelter that 30 employees went to with ~12-15 minutes to spare after they got warning via WEA!
• The base of this substation weighed several tons and was moved 3 feet off its base. several power lines snapped beside it as well.

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

Afternoon heating combined with ample, deep moisture over the region resulted in a moderately unstable atmosphere across the area by late afternoon. This unstable atmosphere combined with moderate shear and a strong cold front sweeping through north and central Georgia to produce a few severe thunderstorms and an isolated tornado across portions of central Georgia.

A National Weather Service survey team found a long-track tornado path across southeast Talbot County that briefly crossed into Taylor County before crossing back into Talbot County and ending. The entire path length was nearly 22 miles and the maximum path width was 700 yards. The tornado path began south of Highway 80 near the Talbot-Muscogee County line moving northeast and causing minor tree damage in a wooded area. It then crossed Box Spring Road where it caused EF-1 damage in a residential area destroying 2 barns and uprooting several large trees. The tornado then briefly weakened causing sparse damage to trees as it continued to move northeast crossing US Highway 80 at Cusseta Highway and passing to the north of Geneva. The tornado began to strengthen considerably as it approached the area northwest of Junction City with EF-1 damage indicated by the flattening of a large swath of trees. At the Junction City Quarry, a power substation weighing approximately 2-3 tons was moved three feet off of its foundation. Along Rock Church Road the tornado reached a width of at least a quarter of a mile, blowing over trees along the road and damaging multiple manufactured homes. As the tornado continued along Stalling Lane large areas of pine trees were snapped and a mid-sized barn was flattened. The tornado continued to increase in strength, causing EF-2 damage about 1.5 miles north of Junction City where hundreds of trees were snapped at their bases and very few trees, if any, were left standing. As the tornado continued northeast crossing Lee Duncan Road southeast of Ingram Road, it was at its most intense with wind speeds estimated to be 120 mph and a maximum path width around 700 yards. The tornado knocked over trees onto a home and destroyed a barn with wood posts anchored about a foot into the ground. The tornado began to weaken as it continued to the northeast over mostly wooded areas causing more large swaths of snapped trees as it crossed Hwy 208 and briefly crossed into Taylor County. No injuries were reported. [04/27/17: Tornado #1/1, County #1/3, EF-2, Talbot, Taylor, Talbot, 2017:067].

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 16:27 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.

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 2017 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

5 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.