EF1 tornado, Arabi to Hatley, Georgia, May 23, 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

May 23, 2017

Touchdown

1:46 PM EDT (17:46 UTC)

Lifted

1:54 PM EDT (17:54 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

5.2 miles (8.4 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$100,000

County

Crisp County

Touchdown point

31.867, -83.748

Lift-off point

31.879, -83.660

Record number

1705231146-01

32 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• 10 trees limbs down or small trees snapped
• Approx 100 pecan trees snapped along 500 yard path
• Approx 100 pecan trees snapped along 500yd path
• 400 ft of chicken house destroyed. Metal siding of building thrown up to 800ft ENE. Photographs were not allowed to be taken.

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

A surface cold front and mid-level short wave associated with a large, deep upper-level trough over the central U.S. swept through the region. Moderate instability combined with strong deep-layer shear to produce scattered severe thunderstorms and isolated tornadoes across north and central Georgia. Deep, rich moisture resulted in very heavy rainfall as well, producing isolated reports of flash flooding.

A National Weather Service survey team found that an EF1 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 110 MPH and a maximum path width of 150 yards began just south of Highway 41 and Landfill Road. The tornado quickly intensified as it moved east-northeast and crossed I-75 where a tractor-trailer was blown over onto a car in the southbound lanes, resulting in two minor injuries. Numerous trees were snapped as it continued east-northeast. The tornado reached its maximum intensity in the 200 block of Allied Road where a house had most of its roof blown off and a mobile home across the street was blown off of its block foundation. The mobile home residents had sought shelter in the home across the street several minutes before the tornado hit and were not injured in spite of the extensive damage. Around the intersection of Arabi Williford Road and Highway 90 another mobile home was blown off of its block foundation, but remained upright. Dozens of trees were snapped or uprooted with one falling on a home causing minor damage before the tornado ended just east of Brock Road where one home had minor roof damage. [05/23/17: Tornado #2, County #1/1, EF-1, Crisp, 2017:073].

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 14:12 UTC and running to 19:10 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 16:23 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), 95 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 17:46 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

11 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.