EF1 tornado, Pineora to Rahn, Georgia, June 14, 2023

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

June 14, 2023

Touchdown

7:27 PM EDT (23:27 UTC)

Lifted

7:35 PM EDT (23:35 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

7.0 miles (11.3 km)

Path width

280 yards (256 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Effingham County

Touchdown point

32.357, -81.438

Lift-off point

32.326, -81.323

Record number

2306141727-01

32 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS CHS, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 105 mph.

• Home with tin roof peeled back

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

A strong mid-level shortwave rounding the base of a parent low centered across the Great Lakes region encountered an environment displaying a warm and moist airmass, leading to thunderstorm development across the Southeast United States. Thunderstorms congealed into clusters with bowing segments, eventually sweeping through the region within an environment displaying unusually strong mid-level flow, moderate to high levels of instability, strong downdraft convective available potential energy (DCAPE) and low-level backing winds supporting high levels of 0-3 KM storm relative helicity. Severe thunderstorms developed as a result, producing straight-line wind damage and a few tornadoes across southeast Georgia during late afternoon into early evening hours.

A National Weather Service Storm Survey Team confirmed an EF-1 tornado with an estimated maximum wind speed of 90 mph south of Tusculum, GA in Effingham County occurring from 627 PM to 635 PM. The tornado began near the intersection of Newton Road and Old Louisville Road with several trees snapped and uprooted. The tornado then tracked through the northern side of Guyton, GA with mostly tree damage, then moved southeast along the northern side of Little McCall Road where it snapped and uprooted multiple trees and removed a small amount of roof fascia and shingles from a couple of homes. The tornado then lifted before reaching Courthouse Road where no damage was observed. Paralleling the tornado track to the south was significant damage caused by straight-line winds from the rear flank downdraft, where snapped and uprooted trees were observed.

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

19 minutes of warning. NWS CHS issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:08 UTC, 19 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 22:21 UTC and running to 01:18 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:48 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 Charleston,SC radar (KCLX), 47 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:30 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 2023 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

11 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.