EF0 tornado, Imlac, Georgia, December 20, 2017

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

   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 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

EF0

Date

December 20, 2017

Touchdown

1:15 PM EST (18:15 UTC)

Lifted

1:17 PM EST (18:17 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

3.2 miles (5.1 km)

Path width

125 yards (114 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$30,000

County

Meriwether County

Touchdown point

33.025, -84.590

Lift-off point

33.020, -84.536

Record number

1712201215-01

16 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 84 mph.

• small fruit stand with roof panels blown into nearby trees
• several trees uprooted. some shingle damage
• several trees downed with several tops out along the tree line
• building collapsed after poles fell over

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

A line of showers, with embedded thunderstorms, developed along a cold front sweeping through north Georgia during the late morning and through the afternoon. Despite limited instability, moderate shear and low-level convergence along the front produced a few isolated severe thunderstorms in North and west central Georgia. One isolated, brief, tornado was also confirmed. This was a Marginal risk day from SPC's Day 1 convective outlook.

A National Weather Service survey team found that an EF0 tornado, with maximum winds speeds of 80-85 MPH and a maximum path width of 125 yards, occurred north of Woodbury in east central Meriwether County. The tornado touched down just west of the intersection of Imlac Road and Walnut Creek Road where a few trees were damaged. The tornado moved east hitting a fruit stand along Imlac Road removing the tin roof and scattering debris in the trees nearby. A shed was damaged on the south side of Imlac Road and several large trees were uprooted in the tree line near the shed. The tornado continued east crossing Carroll Chunn Road where several trees were snapped and uprooted and a home sustained shingle damage. The tornado continued tracking east crossing Highway 85 just south of Covered Bridge Road where a barn collapsed on the west side of the highway and a garage sustained roof damage on the east side. Several trees were either snapped or uprooted here as well. The tornado then paralleled Stribling Road to the east, snapping a few trees in the fields behind homes on the south side of the road before lifting just west of the Flint River. [12/20/17: Tornado #1, County #1/1, EF-0, Meriwether, 2017:083].

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 16:32 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.

Thomaston (OPN), 29 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Atlanta radar (KFFC), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:15 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

6 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.