EF0 tornado, Ducktown to Matt, Georgia, May 1, 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

May 1, 2017

Touchdown

10:24 AM EDT (14:24 UTC)

Lifted

10:28 AM EDT (14:28 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.4 miles (3.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Forsyth County

Touchdown point

34.253, -84.215

Lift-off point

34.266, -84.177

Record number

1705010824-01

23 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 80 mph.

• tree fell pertollback toward NW.
• debris/small branches spread ariund.
• tree fell perpindicular to storm motion (NW)
• hollow trunk. Winds likely 60-70mph.

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

Despite very limited and weak instability across the region, strong low-level shear associated with a deep upper-level low and strong surface cold front managed to produce a couple of weak, short-lived, tornadoes in central Georgia.

A National Weather Service survey team found that an EF0 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 80 MPH and a maximum path width of 150 yards travelled just under 2.5 miles across a portion of northwest Forsyth County. The tornado touched down along McConnell Road south of the Sawnee Mountain Park where it broke numerous small to medium tree branches. This type of damage continued as the tornado moved northeast across Bridgeshaw Drive and Watson Road. As the tornado moved along Pleasant Grove Road, it intensified slightly, snapping or uprooting several trees. One of these trees fell onto a mobile home. The tornado lifted shortly after this near the intersection of Pleasant Grove Road and Doctor Bramblett Road. No injuries were reported. [05/01/17: Tornado #2, County #1/1, EF-0, Forsyth, 2017:069].

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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 13:00 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.

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

14 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.