EF0 tornado, Florence, Georgia, March 9, 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

March 9, 2022

Touchdown

6:48 AM EST (11:48 UTC)

Lifted

6:51 AM EST (11:51 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

1.1 miles (1.8 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Stewart County

Touchdown point

32.062, -84.997

Lift-off point

32.072, -84.982

Record number

2203090548-01

4 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 75 mph.

• A couple of trees uprooted/twisted.
• Metal roofing peeled off an overhang at hunting camp.

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

A warm moist airmass was in place due to a stalled boundary across portions of central Georgia. As an upper level trough pushed northeastward, surface cyclogenesis occured over southern Alabama. As the surface low deepened and moved northeastward across Georgia, the stalled boundary retreated north allowing for warm air advection to overspread warmer temps and dewpoints across central Georgia. With modest low-level shear and surface-based instability in place ahead of the approaching surface front, an isolated cyclic supercell developed in west Georgia, producing a brief tornado and warranting severe thunderstorm warnings over the area.

A brief tornado touched down in rural Stewart County in a remote wooded area just southwest of Canyon Road where a TDS signature was observed on radar. Initial observed damage consisted of snapped tree branches and a couple of downed trees in the vicinity of Canyon Road. The tornado then impacted a hunting camp just north of Canyon Road. Metal roofing material was torn off of an overhang at this location and a couple of tree tops were twisted and tree branches were broken. The tornado then appeared to lift in a wooded area just northeast with inaccessible wooded areas beyond this point. [3/9/22: Tornado #1, County #1/1, EF-0, Stewart, 2022:003].

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 11:18 UTC and running to 15:51 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 Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:55 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.

Eufaula (EUF), 18 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Ft Rucker radar (KEOX), 81 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 11:49 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

7 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.