EF1 tornado, Pelham, Georgia, April 23, 2020

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

April 23, 2020

Touchdown

12:05 PM EDT (16:05 UTC)

Lifted

12:10 PM EDT (16:10 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.4 miles (3.9 km)

Path width

176 yards (161 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Mitchell County

Touchdown point

31.131, -84.162

Lift-off point

31.121, -84.124

Record number

2004231005-01

19 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TAE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 107 mph.

• few large hardwoods uprooted
• few trees down but mostly branches

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

Another in a series of strong upper level troughs pushed through the southeast states, resulting in another enhanced risk of severe storms from the Storm Prediction Center. The tri-state area was hit fairly hard again, with numerous reports of wind damage documented along with several tornadoes.

This tornado touched down near Welch St. NW on the west side of Pelham, GA. Damage was mainly confined to snapped or uprooted trees. However, the tornado did remove a large percentage of metal roofing at an auto service building on Curry Street. It also flipped a van at this location. Several trees were uprooted or snapped on Green St. before the tornado damaged a metal awning at a warehouse on U.S. 19 just south of Green St. East. The tornado continued southeast from there, causing some damage to an outbuilding and the roof of a home on Harmony Road before lifting. The damage was consistent with an EF-1 rating with max winds of 95 mph. Many other locations within Pelham were damaged by straight-line winds estimated to be around 80 mph.

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

18 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 15:47 UTC, 18 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 16:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:53 UTC and running to 19:47 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 12:50 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.

Camilla (CXU), 13 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 16:05 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

29 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.