EF1 tornado, Cleveland White Arpt, Georgia, March 17, 2018

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

March 17, 2018

Touchdown

9:31 PM EDT (01:31 UTC)

Lifted

9:36 PM EDT (01:36 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

5.1 miles (8.1 km)

Path width

630 yards (576 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$500,000

County

White County

Touchdown point

34.790, -83.784

Lift-off point

34.740, -83.719

Record number

1803171931-01

4 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 105 mph.

• 200 to 300 trees snapped or uprooted along NW facing slope of ridge paralleling state hwy 17.
• Tree fell on unoccupied airstream trailer
• 500-600 trees uprooted or snapped.

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

An upper-level short wave sweeping southeast through the southern Appalachians spawned isolated severe thunderstorms across the region. Cold air aloft, associated with the short wave, produced large hail in portions of north and central Georgia. Enhanced shear along a warm front helped to produced an isolated tornado in northeast Georgia.

A National Weather Service survey team found that an EF1 tornado, with a maximum wind speed of 105 mph and a maximum path width of 630 yards, moved across northern White County. The tornado touched down at the Upper Chattahoochee River Campground in the Chattahoochee Wildlife Management area, just south of the Union County line. Hundreds of trees were blown down as the tornado travelled southeast across the northern portion of the Wildlife Management Area. The tornado passed out of the Chattahoochee WMA along Highway 17 north of Dyers Drive where it struck an RV resort containing dozens of recreational vehicles. Dozens of trees were blown down in the resort area destroying four buildings and an unoccupied trailer. Other large trees narrowly missed several occupied trailers in the park. Across Highway 17 from the resort, an entire stand of several hundred trees was snapped or uprooted along a ridge. This area around the RV resort and the ridge is where the tornado reached its maximum strength of 105 mph and width of 630 yards. The tornado quickly weakened after crossing the ridge but continued moving southeast through forest land snapping and uprooting trees. The path crossed Tray Mountain Road before ending north of Unicoi State Park along Anna Ruby Falls Road. In total, it is estimated that a thousand or more trees were snapped or uprooted along the entire path of this tornado. [03/17/18: Tornado #1, County #1/1, EF-1, White, 2018:004].

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 01:07 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 Greer radar (KGSP), 140 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:28 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 2018 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

4 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.