EF0 tornado, (Atl)Atlanta Intl Ar, Georgia, May 4, 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 4, 2017

Touchdown

9:12 PM EDT (01:12 UTC)

Lifted

9:13 PM EDT (01:13 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$50,000

County

Fulton County

Touchdown point

33.656, -84.418

Lift-off point

33.657, -84.417

Record number

1705041912-01

10 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 85 mph.

• fence damage from cargo bins thrown into it.
• gash in side of building from thrown cargo bins. Estimated wind speed = 75-85 mph.
• 250-500 pound can landed on vehicle ~50 yards away.
• 7-10 cargo bins weighing 250 to 500 lifted and thrown 50-100 yards

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

A weakly unstable but strongly sheared atmosphere accompanying a deep upper-level low and associated strong cold front resulted in a few severe thunderstorms in north Georgia with damaging winds and two isolated tornadoes.

A National Weather Service survey team found that an EF0 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 85 MPH and a maximum path width of 50 yards touched down at the North Cargo Bay on the north side of the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in far southern Fulton County. The tornado picked up 8-10 cargo bins ranging in weight from 250-500 pounds. Three-four of these bins landed on the roof of an adjacent building approximately 60 feet in the air. The tornado travelled just over a tenth of a mile, snapping 2 trees and taking down a fence before ending. No injuries were reported. [05/04/17: Tornado #1, County #1/1, EF-0, Fulton, 2017:070].

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 00:56 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

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.