Tornadoes · United States · Georgia · 2019

EF0 tornado, Riverdale to Lake City, Georgia, February 12, 2019

From Riverdale to Lake City, this EF0 tornado ran 3.0 miles across Clayton County on February 12, 2019, touching down at 1:33 PM EST and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $25,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
February 12, 2019
Touchdown
1:33 PM EST (18:33 UTC)
Lifted
1:39 PM EST (18:39 UTC)
On the ground
6 minutes
Path length
3.0 miles (4.8 km)
Path width
100 yards (91 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$25,000
County
Clayton County
Touchdown point
33.598, -84.407
Lift-off point
33.609, -84.357
Record number
1902121233-01

The damage survey

6 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 75 mph.

  • 2 trees down (likely inflow toward the center of circulation as it touched down near Bentley Way. Pics sent from Fayette Co. EMA

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

What the Weather Service recorded

A sharp upper-level trough and associated strong cold front swept through the region resulting in numerous reports of damaging thunderstorm wind gusts and a few isolated tornadoes across parts of north and central Georgia.

A National Weather Service survey team found that a brief, EF0 tornado with a maximum winds speed of 75 mph and a maximum path width of 100 yards occurred in northern Clayton County. The tornado touched down along Highway 85 between Forest Park and Riverdale where trees were blown down or snapped on either side of the highway just south of Orr Road. The tornado ripped shingles off the roof of an apartment building and downed several trees around the apartment complex as it moved east-northeast. The tornado crossed I-75 and downed trees along Pineridge Drive between Virginia Circle and Ash Street before lifting along School Lane just northwest of Forest Park High School where it blew down several large limbs onto the roof of a home. No injuries were reported. [02/12/19: Tornado #2, County #1/1, EF-0, Clayton, 2019:002].

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Atlanta, GA wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Feb 12, 12:00 PM EST, 1 hour 33 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Feb 12, 12:00 PM EST, 1 hour 33 minutes before
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Hazardous weather outlook, Feb 12, 10:42 AM EST, 2 hours 51 minutes before
Hazardous Weather Outlook
National Weather Service Peachtree City GA
1042 AM EST Tue Feb 12 2019

GAZ001>009-011>016-019>025-027-030>039-041>062-066>076-078>086-
089>098-102>113-131545-
Baldwin-Banks-Barrow-Bartow-Bibb-Bleckley-Butts-Carroll-Catoosa-
Chattahoochee-Chattooga-Cherokee-Clarke-Clayton-Cobb-Coweta-
Crawford-Crisp-Dade-Dawson-DeKalb-Dodge-Dooly-Douglas-Emanuel-
Fannin-Fayette-Floyd-Forsyth-Gilmer-Glascock-Gordon-Greene-
Gwinnett-Hall-Hancock-Haralson-Harris-Heard-Henry-Houston-Jackson-
Jasper-Jefferson-Johnson-Jones-Lamar-Laurens-Lumpkin-Macon-
Madison-Marion-Meriwether-Monroe-Montgomery-Morgan-Murray-
Muscogee-Newton-North Fulton-Oconee-Oglethorpe-Paulding-Peach-
Pickens-Pike-Polk-Pulaski-Putnam-Rockdale-Schley-South Fulton-
Spalding-Stewart-Sumter-Talbot-Taliaferro-Taylor-Telfair-Toombs-
Towns-Treutlen-Troup-Twiggs-Union-Upson-Walker-Walton-Warren-
Washington-Webster-Wheeler-White-Whitfield-Wilcox-Wilkes-
Wilkinson-
1042 AM EST Tue Feb 12 2019

This Hazardous Weather Outlook is for portions of North and Central Georgia.

.DAY ONE...This Afternoon and Tonight...

Patchy dense fog will continue to impact portions of eastern
Georgia through the rest of the morning hours.

A line of showers with isolated embedded thunderstorms will move
through the area through this afternoon and evening. Although
widespread severe weather is not anticipated, a few of the storms
could be strong producing damaging winds and heavy rainfall. An
isolated tornado cannot be ruled out, especially across portions
of west and central Georgia later this afternoon.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...Wednesday through Monday...

Isolated thunderstorms will be possible again on Sunday as a
series of storm systems move across the outlook area. In
addition, some localized flooding will be possible as the
potential for locally heavy rainfall will exist.

.SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT...

Spotter activation is not requested but spotters are encouraged
to submit reports of severe weather through the web by going to
weather.gov/atlanta.

In the hours before

Special weather statement, Feb 12, 11:01 AM EST, 2 hours 32 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Feb 12, 12:27 PM EST, 1 hour 6 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Feb 12, 12:49 PM EST, 44 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Feb 12, 1:01 PM EST, 32 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Feb 12, 1:16 PM EST, 17 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Feb 12, 1:22 PM EST, 11 minutes before
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The air that afternoon

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.

Peachtre/Fal Fld, GA (KFFC), 12:00Z

6.6 hours before the tornado, 28 km from the path. February 12, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Peachtre/Fal Fld, GA at 12:00Z on 2019-02-12Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 65 joules per kilogram, CIN -13, lifted condensation level 496 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Peachtre/Fal Fld, GA at 12:00Z on 2019-02-12The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 274 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 54 knots.19395878Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
65 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-13 J/kg
Surface CAPE
20 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
496 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
54 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
44 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
274 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
279 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.0
0-3 km lapse rate
4.2 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Atlanta International Airport (ATL), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Atlanta radar (KFFC), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:31 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of February 12, 2019

5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
February 124:53 AM CSTEF1Leake, MS4.2500$40,000
February 121:29 PM ESTEF0Fayette, GA0.6150$10,000
February 122:12 PM ESTEF0Henry, GA0.9100$15,000
February 122:29 PM ESTEF0Macon, GA0.8200$10,000
February 126:48 PM ESTEF1Orangeburg, SC0.6125

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.