EF2 tornado, Ticknor, Georgia, December 15, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

December 15, 2022

Touchdown

5:27 AM EST (10:27 UTC)

Lifted

5:32 AM EST (10:32 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

280 yards (256 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$1.0 million

County

Colquitt County

Touchdown point

31.304, -83.946

Lift-off point

31.329, -83.931

Record number

2212150427-01

A strong cold front moved through the area during the Dec 14-15 time frame, bringing with it a round of beneficial rainfall. A few severe storms also occurred across the tri-state area, including a few tornadoes. One brief but strong tornado touched down in northwest Colquitt county, resulting in EF2 damage.

A tornado touched down in a field southwest of Doerun in Colquitt County and began to progress north northeast. The first damage occurred just north of the intersection of Mt. Sinai Road and Culbreth Road, where it caused roof and tree damage to a mobile home consistent with a high end EF-1. After hitting the mobile home, the tornado moved near the intersection of West Highway 270 and Herman Simmons Road where it would snap and uproot many trees resulting in high end EF-1 damage. It would then uproot a couple large oak trees and cause roof damage to a single family home consistent with EF-1 damage. The tornado would then continue to cross West Highway 270 where it would cause significant damage to a cotton gin facility. This was the maximum damage along the path, consistent with EF-2 intensity with max winds estimated near 120 mph. The tornado would then weaken rapidly as it continued northeast, uprooting and snapping more pine trees before dissipating in a field before the intersection of Ticknor Road and North Highway 133.

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

0 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:27 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:34 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:02 UTC and running to 11:34 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:30 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), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:29 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

4 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.