EF2 tornado, Five Points to Tweed, Georgia, April 5, 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 5, 2017

Touchdown

3:38 PM EDT (19:38 UTC)

Lifted

4:07 PM EDT (20:07 UTC)

On the ground

29 minutes

Path length

20.2 miles (32.5 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$170,000

Counties

Laurens and Treutlen counties

Touchdown point

32.332, -82.986

Lift-off point

32.417, -82.654

Record number

1704051338-01

1 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 112 mph.

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

Another strong short wave, the second in three days, rotated through a large and deep upper-level trough over the eastern U.S. A deep surface low and strong cold front moved through the state combining with moderate instability and strong low-level shear to produce another round of widespread severe weather across north and central Georgia, including several tornadoes.

A National Weather Service survey team found that an EF2 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 115 MPH and a maximum path width of 400 yards touched down in southwestern Laurens County around the intersection of Evan Colter Road and Frog Hollow Road where a house sustained damage and dozens of trees were snapped and uprooted. Just east of this location, a large auto-body repair shop was destroyed along Coleman Register Road some damage occurred to nearby homes. Dozens of trees were also snapped in the area. The tornado continued moving northeast crossing Five Points Road and snapping trees before clipping home along Baker Church road. The second floor on the south side of the house was mostly destroyed. Nearby, a large, triangular radio tower was completely bent over and several outbuildings were completely destroyed. The tornado continued northeast along James Evans Road crossing US Highway 441 snapping trees and damaging the roofs of homes along the way. The tornado continued snapping and uprooting trees as it moved northeast crossing South Poplar Springs Church Road, Greg Couey Road, Hall Road, Captain Debbie Brown Highway, Rock Springs Road and eventually going over a marshy area in eastern Laurens county before crossing into Treutlen County. The team could not access the marshy area between Rock Spring Road and Highway 199 but did find damage to trees along Highway 199 and Thairdell Road indicating a continuous path through the marshy region. The Tornado crossed Mercer Creek into Treutlen County just east of Thairdell Road. No injuries were reported. [04/05/7: Tornado #7, County #1/2, EF-2, Laurens, Treutlen, 2017:066].

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:54 UTC and running to 00:00 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:29 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), 60 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:39 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 2017 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

23 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.