EF2 tornado, Nahunta to Nahunta Brantley Arp, Georgia, March 9, 2024

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

March 9, 2024

Touchdown

1:39 PM EST (18:39 UTC)

Lifted

1:46 PM EST (18:46 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

4.7 miles (7.6 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

5

County

Brantley County

Touchdown point

31.169, -81.968

Lift-off point

31.175, -81.889

Record number

2403091239-01

17 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS JAX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• Airport roof blown to this location
• Tin roof over shingles removed completely, front poarch removed.
• Leg injury transported to hospital and released.
• Travel trailer in parts of an outbuilding all blown together into a large pile travel trailer is totally destroyed rated at 120 mph in somewhat because of other damage in vicinity

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

High moisture content and the entire area in the warm sector ahead of an approaching pre-frontal squall line produced strong to severe storms and a couple of tornadoes.

A strong EF2 tornado tracked west to east parallel to Georgia Highway 82, about 2.5 to 3 miles SW of Nahunta. Touchdown was near Santa Fe Road. Extensive mobile home damage and tree damage occurred. Some homes were flattened, blown off of their foundations and completely destroyed. One mobile home was blown off of its foundation and launched into the nearby forest resulting in its total destruction along Matthews Cir. A large section of a roof was removed on a home at Matthews Circle. Additional mobile home and tree damage occurred near Long Lake Road and Buffalo Creek Dr.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:37 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 11:44 UTC and running to 21:00 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 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:36 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 Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 79 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:41 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 2024 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

3 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.