EF0 tornado, Walthourville to Bayview, Georgia, April 13, 2020

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

April 13, 2020

Touchdown

7:47 AM EDT (11:47 UTC)

Lifted

7:48 AM EDT (11:48 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.4 miles (0.6 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Long County

Touchdown point

31.688, -81.686

Lift-off point

31.689, -81.680

Record number

2004130547-01

3 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.

• Hardwoods and pines snapped
• Pines and hardwood snapped

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

A severe quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) moved through southeast Georgia during the early morning hours of April 13, 2020 ahead of an approaching cold front. The environment ahead of the QLCS was unusually unstable for this time of day and year, with gulf moisture spreading upper 60 F to near 70 F dewpoints into a warm sector across the Southeast United States and mid level lapse rates around 7 C/km helping produce mixed layer convective available potential energy (MLCAPE) as high as 2000 J/kg across Southeast Georgia. Within the warm sector, very strong vertical shear associated with a 50 knot plus low and mid-level jet, effective bulk shear around 70 knots, effective storm relative helicity in the 400-600 m2/s2 range, and VAD wind profiles displaying large, curved low-level hodographs were supportive of well organized convection and potentially embedded supercell thunderstorms in a QLCS capable of producing a prolonged path of damaging winds and strong long-track tornadoes. As the QLCS swept through Southeast Georgia, a few thunderstorms became exceptionally strong supercell thunderstorms embedded within or while becoming partially separated from the main line of thunderstorms, producing straight-line wind damage and a series of tornadoes across a few counties. A total of 4 confirmed tornadoes occurred across Southeast Georgia, mainly from 2 long-lived storms, one of which started in Screven County and continued northeast into South Carolina, producing widespread wind damage and destructive long track or intermittent tornadoes for over 150 miles. The second storm, produced a path of straight-line wind damage and intermittent tornadoes along a path further south, starting outside the area across Wayne County, then tracking east-northeast into Long County and continuing across Liberty County and Bryant County, before shifting offshore along the Southeast Georgia coast.

A National Weather Service Storm Damage Survey Team confirmed an EF-1 tornado with an estimated maximum wind speed of 105 mph southwest of Ludowici, Georgia. The path of this tornado was originally detected by high resolution satellite imagery over the remote area of the Griffin Ridge Wildlife Management Area (WMA), which was then confirmed on the ground using damage pictures sent by staff from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The tornado began near Hughes River Road, about 5.5 miles southwest of Ludowici, then moved east-northeast over mostly marsh and uninhabited area, eventually crossing over Check Station Road which enters into the Griffin Ridge WMA from Highway 301. The tornado then continued east-northeast before ending just west of Highway 301. Damage from the tornado primarily consisted of many snapped and uprooted trees.

A National Weather Service Storm Survey Team confirmed an EF-0 tornado with an estimated maximum wind speed of 80 mph about three miles east-southeast of Ludowici, Georgia. The tornado was brief, downing and uprooting a few trees, causing damage to two barn buildings, and producing damage to a mobile home near Stafford Diary Road.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS CHS issued a tornado warning for this county at 11:33 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 12:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:21 UTC and running to 12:58 UTC.

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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 05:50 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.

Jesup (JES), 24 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), 123 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:47 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 2020 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

67 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 68 of them

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.