EF0 tornado, Broxton, Georgia, September 26, 2024

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

September 26, 2024

Touchdown

2:30 PM EDT (18:30 UTC)

Lifted

2:33 PM EDT (18:33 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

0.5 miles (0.7 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Coffee County

Touchdown point

31.628, -82.880

Lift-off point

31.634, -82.883

Record number

2409261230-01

Hurricane Helene made landfall as a category 4 with peak winds of near 140 mph in the Florida Big |Bend just east of the Aucilla River Entrance in Taylor County, late Thursday evening September 26, |2024. Helene's main impact to southeast Georgia and northeast Florida was wind damage as it |tracked quickly north-northeast. The very powerful hurricane and the forward motion produced a |wide swath of wind damage across the forecast area with peak wind gusts 55 to 75 mph across the |eastern half of the area, and western zones up to 75 to 100 mph from the Suwannee Valley area |northward through interior southeast GA. The max wind gust of 100 mph was measured at the Alma |GA ASOS in the early morning hours of Friday September 27th. Given the strength of these winds, |widespread power outages, structure damage and downed or uprooted trees occurred across inland |southeast GA and portions of northeast FL. At least 1 tornado occurred, which was in Coffee county. |Maximum rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches were located over western half of the area.

In a rainband ahead of Hurricane Helene, a weak tornado formed|near Broxton, GA along George Deen Rd and HWY 268. A video of the|tornado was posted on social media. Minor structural damage to |homes and several trees down were reported in this area. Around 2:30 pm, the tornado was sighted on the ground near Highway 268 East. It damaged shingles and shifted a doublewide trailer off of its foundation at 2507 and 2807 Highway 268 East. Multiple trees were blown down with confirmed damage as 1668, 1700 and 1732 George Deen Road. Some trees fell on a home.

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

16 minutes of warning. NWS JAX issued a tornado warning for this county at 18:14 UTC, 16 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 14:49 UTC and running to 23:51 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:27 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), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 18:32 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

14 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.