EF0 tornado, Covena to Kirby, Georgia, April 5, 2022

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 5, 2022

Touchdown

5:27 PM EDT (21:27 UTC)

Lifted

5:28 PM EDT (21:28 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Emanuel County

Touchdown point

32.521, -82.309

Lift-off point

32.528, -82.300

Record number

2204051527-01

5 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 109 mph.

• Approx 100 hardwoods and softwood trees snapped

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

A multi-day severe weather outbreak initiated with a warm moist air mass situated over Georgia as a strengthening upper level system pushed across central Georgia. With moderate instability in place with increased shear, combined to create numerous severe thunderstorms, taking the form of a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) with several strong supercells ahead of the front. The resulting front stalled across central Georgia and interacted with a weaker shortwave moving up from the Gulf of Mexico, serving as a catalyst for another day of severe weather and flash flooding on April 6th.

The same mesovortex that produced a brief tornado in northcentral|Treutlen County on April 5, spun up another weak tornado|southwest of Swainsboro near Kemp Rd and Ebenezer Church Rd. It|traveled northeast downing several trees then traveled near the|intersection of US80 and US1 as it entered the city limits. More|trees were snapped or uprooted along the path as it traveled into|the city. Several businesses near downtown had a large amount of|tin roofing blown off and into streets. A few signs were also|blown down. The tornado lifted shortly after this point just|northeast of downtown. [4/5/22: Tornado #15, County #1/1, EF-1, Emanuel, 2022:018].

A brief tornado touched down southwest of US1 just south of Sand|Hill Rd causing minor roof damage to a home and snapping a few|trees. [4/5/22: Tornado #16, County #1/1, EF-0, Emanuel, 2022:019].

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

30 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:57 UTC, 30 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 21:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:05 UTC and running to 22:05 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 20:00 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.

Swainsboro (SBO), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Robins AFB radar (KJGX), 99 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:28 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 2022 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

66 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 67 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.