EF1 tornado, Denton to Graham, Georgia, December 30, 2021

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

December 30, 2021

Touchdown

4:32 PM EST (21:32 UTC)

Lifted

4:55 PM EST (21:55 UTC)

On the ground

23 minutes

Path length

11.7 miles (18.8 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Jeff Davis and Appling counties

Touchdown point

31.690, -82.730

Lift-off point

31.744, -82.541

Record number

2112301532-01

A broken prefrontal squall line shifted southward into the Ocmulgee and Altamaha River basins during the afternoon and early evening hours. Warm, moist southwesterly flow ahead of the line increased low-level moisture and destabilized the area with afternoon surface-based CAPE around 1000 J/kg and dew points near 70 degrees. The cold front and upper trough approached from the northwest increasing 0-6 km shear to around 40-50 knots with an area of 0-3 km SRH near 200 m2/s2 west-northwest of Waycross, GA. These convective ingredients allowed for a few strong to severe thunderstorms to develop and produce damaging winds and a brief tornado. A severe thunderstorm moving through southern Jeff Davis county produced an EF1 intensity tornado that formed south of Denton, GA. The tornado tracked east-northeastward around 25 mph through Jeff Davis county before dissipating as soon as the severe thunderstorm moved into Appling county.

Just after 430 pm, a severe thunderstorm spawned a weak tornado that touched down just west of US 221 at Wooten farm road snapping softwood trees as it continued east northeast at 25 mph along Denton Still road crossing US 221 into Archie Miller road where the tornado damaged the garage doors of a farm outbuilding and removed shingles from the roofs of a few homes. The tornado stayed on the ground as it traveled east northeast strengthening to EF1 intensity. It then caused significant roof loss to a farmhouse and other homes and blew off the metal roof of a storage building just south of Yankee road about a half mile west of Bell Telephone road. Multiple trees and powerlines were down also along Bell Telephone road. The tornado moved east to northeast through Baucom and Brantley roads snapping and uprooting more large trees and toppling power lines before dissipating down to EF0 intensity as it tracked over Alma highway and then lifted and completely dissipated as the severe thunderstorm moved into Appling county before 500 PM.

A tornado began to decrease down to an EF0 as it tracked over the Jeff Davis and Appling county border. The last tornado damage found was along Alma Highway where a couple of softwood trees were snapped and branches broken ranging from 1 to 3 inches in diameter. This is the end of the tornado track.

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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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 Moody AFB radar (KVAX), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:31 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.

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 2021 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.