EF1 tornado, Central Jct to Garden City, Georgia, May 4, 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 4, 2017

Touchdown

5:50 PM EDT (21:50 UTC)

Lifted

6:00 PM EDT (22:00 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

2.8 miles (4.5 km)

Path width

120 yards (110 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

5

County

Chatham County

Touchdown point

32.081, -81.148

Lift-off point

32.118, -81.129

Record number

1705041550-01

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

• partially rotted tree trunk
• open field with snapped limbs
• poorly constructed wall with rotten wood collapsed/blew out, which then pushed out garage door
• part of metal roof of big industrial building removed

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

A strong line of thunderstorms developed in the afternoon hours well ahead of a cold front to the west. Large scale forcing was strong and the near storm environment was supportive of severe thunderstorms, with some embedded supercell thunderstorms. Damaging wind gusts occurred as well as a tornado in the Garden City area of Chatham County.

A National Weather Service storm survey team confirmed that an EF1 tornado occurred in Chatham County near Garden City. The tornado began near the intersection of Seaboard Coastline Drive and Telfair Road. At this location, damage was mainly limited to some snapped trees and minor wind damage to the bottom skirts of some mobile office trailers. The tornado continued northward with the next damage area along Alfred Street, just east of Market Street. At this location there were some snapped trees and minor damage to the wall of one home, which was partially blown down, causing the garage door to blow out. From this point, the tornado moved northward producing sporadic, non-continuous damage. About one third of a metal roof of an industrial building just north of Market Street was damaged. Next, the tornado moved toward the more industrial and commercial area just south of Highway 80, where it did significant damage to an Advanced Auto Parts store. Three walls collapsed and the roof was heavily damaged and shifted halfway off the remaining rear wall. At this point, the tornado had its strongest winds, estimated to be around 110 mph. The rating was capped at a high end EF1 due to the lack of damage or much less significant damage to structures immediately around the store. There were also five people injured inside the Advanced Auto Parts store, and at least 5 cars were heavily damaged from the front wall of the store falling on them. The tornado continued to do very sporadic and more minor damage as it moved north of Highway 21, finally terminating at the Port of Savannah-Garden City. At the port, it pushed over some shipping containers and did minor damage to some container tanks in the area. The tornado then moved into the Savannah River and dissipated.

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 20:00 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.

Savannah - Hilton Head (SAV), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Charleston,SC radar (KCLX), 63 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:48 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

12 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.