EF1 tornado, Thomasville, Georgia, April 6, 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 6, 2022

Touchdown

11:36 PM EDT (03:36 UTC)

Lifted

11:39 PM EDT (03:39 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$100,000

County

Thomas County

Touchdown point

30.814, -83.995

Lift-off point

30.818, -83.968

Record number

2204062136-01

35 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 105 mph.

• Roof off dugout opposite direction
• Tree on back half of house. Back portion of home collapsed due to impact - not so much the wind. Front half of home is undamaged.
• Some roof damagw from tree strike
• Roof impacts. Adjacent car was moved.

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.

This tornado in Thomasville touched down near Wood Lakes Rd and S Pinetree Blvd. The tornado uprooted or snapped numerous trees in Balfour Park, along with causing minor roof damage to a home in vicinity of the park. The tornado caused significant damage to one of the baseball fields used by Thomas University adjacent to Varnedoe Street. A large concrete wall, reinforced with rebar was completely knocked over. The tornado was then in intermittent contact with the ground while traveling through residential areas along and south of Persimmon Street. Some minor damage to roofs occurred in this area along with a few uprooted trees. The tornado crossed a large wooded area, emerging along Gordon Avenue and uprooting and snapping several large pines, with one impacting a home near the intersection of Gordon Avenue and Longleaf Drive. The tornado caused a large pine to impact a home on Evergreen Drive, with additional large trees snapped along Millpond Road before dissipating. This tornado was rated an EF1 with max winds estimated at 100 mph.

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 19:50 UTC and running to 04:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:43 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.

Thomasville (TVI), 14 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 57 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:37 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

12 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.