EF1 tornado, Turner City to Doles, Georgia, January 2, 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 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

January 2, 2017

Touchdown

10:32 PM EST (03:32 UTC)

Lifted

10:42 PM EST (03:42 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

8.9 miles (14.4 km)

Path width

600 yards (549 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

Counties

Worth and Dougherty counties

Touchdown point

31.642, -84.009

Lift-off point

31.678, -83.863

Record number

1701022132-01

168 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TAE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

• Structure shifted off cement blocks and was destroyed. Does not appear the structure was tied or nailed down. Based on building construction, went with lower wind speed values, especially considering lack of tree damage in the immediate area. (used lower DOD to allow for lower wind speed value)
• Numerous trees snapped/uprooted. Minor structural damage.
• Numerous trees snapped or uprooted.
• Several irrigation systems flipped over in the field.

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

Multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms affected the region to start the year. Two day rainfall totals in excess of 8 inches were common across portions of the Florida panhandle with several roads flooded. Severe weather, including tornadoes and significant straight line wind damage, also occurred across the tri-state area with most of it in southeast Alabama and southwest Georgia. Albany was particularly hard hit with significant wind damage. There were a total of 5 fatalities across the tri-state area from straight line winds. There was also 1 fatality in Florida due to river flooding.

An EF1 tornado touched down just inside the Dougherty County line along Cordele Road before moving east-northeast into Worth County. The tornado lifted just east of Highway 313. A strongly convergent signature was noted in the tree damage which supports the designation as a tornado. Max winds were estimated at 105 mph.

An EF1 tornado touched down just inside the Dougherty County line along Cordele Road before moving east northeast into Worth County. The tornado lifted just east of Highway 313. A strongly convergent signature was noted in the tree damage which supports the designation as a tornado. There was significant damage to the Camp Osborn area in far western Worth county where a group of boy scouts were staying overnight. Although thousands of trees were blown down with several buildings in the forest destroyed due to falling trees, the boy scouts remained safe due to receiving the warning with sufficient lead time to take shelter in a safer building. Max winds were estimated around 105 mph. Damage cost was estimated.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:19 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:47 UTC and running to 03:40 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 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.

Albany Municipal (ABY), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Moody AFB radar (KVAX), 123 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:33 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

38 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.