EF1 tornado, Greenough to Sale City, 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

4:12 PM EDT (20:12 UTC)

Lifted

4:19 PM EDT (20:19 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

8.1 miles (13.0 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Mitchell County

Touchdown point

31.321, -84.135

Lift-off point

31.299, -84.000

Record number

2204051412-01

8 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 90 mph.

• Little house was moved, and multiple large pine trees were either snapped half way up or uprooted.
• A stand of multiple large pine trees were snapped or uprooted on top of the hill.
• A tree or two large pine trees were snapped.
• A couple of large trees were uprooted or snapped.

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

A slow moving cold front brought multiple rounds of severe weather to the tri-state region from April 5-7. Several tornadoes occurred along with numerous reports of wind damage and a few reports of large hail. None of the tornadoes were rated stronger than EF1.

A tornado touched down near the intersection of Faircloth road and Tuton Road in Mitchell county. It snapped a stand of large pine trees before moving east southeast towards a residence along Tuton road. At the residence, it snapped and uprooted several large pine trees, uplifted and destroyed a car port, and slightly moved a tiny home off its foundation, but did not produce significant damage to it. The very evident path continued to a residence along Palm road where it snapped a few pine trees across the field from the house. The tornado continued east towards Bobwhite Way where a stand of large pine trees and other miscellaneous trees were uprooted or snapped along the road. The path of the tornado was very evident through a Plantation where a line of large pine trees were snapped or uprooted until Georgia highway 93. A residence along Georgia highway 93 had a front porch lifted off the house, as well as many large trees snapped or uprooted along the property. The tree damage continued towards the Mitchell and Colquitt county line where the tornado likely lifted. This tornado was rated an EF1 with maximum winds around 90 mph.

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

14 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:58 UTC, 14 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:05 UTC and running to 21:16 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.

The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 104 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:11 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.