EF0 tornado, Skipperton to Dry Branch, Georgia, November 7, 2018

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

November 7, 2018

Touchdown

5:35 PM EST (22:35 UTC)

Lifted

5:45 PM EST (22:45 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

7.6 miles (12.2 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Bibb County

Touchdown point

32.718, -83.759

Lift-off point

32.754, -83.635

Record number

1811071635-01

22 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 78 mph.

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

Thunderstorms along a slowly moving cold front produced isolated reports of damaging thunderstorm winds across central Georgia during the late afternoon and early evening.

A National Weather Service survey determined that an EF0 tornado with maximum wind speeds of 80 mph and a maximum path width of 200 yards occurred across southern Bibb County, south of Macon. The tornado touched down around intersection of Sardis Church Road and Hartley Bridge Road where several large trees were snapped, one striking a house. The tornado moved east-northeast snapping and uprooting trees across Barfield Road and I-75. East of I-75, a church along Skipperton Road had a portion of its metal roof blown off and tossed more than 100 yards downwind. At this same location, a covered walkway anchored in the ground with concrete footings was pulled from the ground. The tornado continued east-northeast across the Skipperton community with trees blown down along Hartley Bridge Road and Houston Road, eventually lifting east of Highway 129, Hawkinsville Road. [11/07/18: Tornado #1, County #1/1, EF-0, Bibb, 2018:015].

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.

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 19:45 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), 33 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:37 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

1 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.