EF1 tornado, Bartlett to Winchester, Georgia, April 5, 2022

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 5, 2022

Touchdown

3:01 PM EDT (19:01 UTC)

Lifted

3:24 PM EDT (19:24 UTC)

On the ground

23 minutes

Path length

17.3 miles (27.9 km)

Path width

250 yards (229 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Macon County

Touchdown point

32.307, -84.169

Lift-off point

32.391, -83.889

Record number

2204051301-01

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.

An EF1 tornado first touched down south of Ideal in the |Fountainville community in Macon County. Numerous trees were |snapped and uprooted along county road 240 near the Buck Creek |Bridge. The tornado continued tracking northeast following Buck |Creek in a heavily wooded region before crossing GA Hwy 90 at a |Tyson Plant. Minor damage occurred in and around the plant as well|as to a nearby mobile home. Trees were also snapped and uprooted |on both sides of Hwy 90. The tornado continued NE crossing county |Road 56 snapping trees before reaching Whitewater State park where|both ground survey and radar confirm it likely reached maximum |intensity. Numerous trees were snapped and uprooted as it crossed |Hwy 128. Several buildings at the park also sustained damage. The |tornado continued NE crossing the Flint River and heavily wooded |areas before crossing Hwy 49 snapping a few trees and beginning to|weaken. The storm continued NE crossing mostly farm fields |crossing county Road 227 and eventually Perkins Farm Road where a |small outbuilding was destroyed. The tornado lifted shortly |thereafter near Hwy 224. [4/5/22: Tornado #4, County #1/1, EF-1, Macon, 2022:007].

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:05 UTC and running to 20:08 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 16:29 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 Robins AFB radar (KJGX), 73 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:58 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.