EF1 tornado, Jordan, Georgia, September 26, 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 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

September 26, 2024

Touchdown

8:56 PM EDT (00:56 UTC)

Lifted

8:58 PM EDT (00:58 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

0.7 miles (1.1 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

0

County

Wheeler County

Touchdown point

32.058, -82.651

Lift-off point

32.067, -82.657

Record number

2409261856-01

54 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EFU. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

• No pictures and details are sketchy at this time from EMA.
• Pic to show comparison across street of damage
• Washout of bridge along US Hwy 23/341 between McRae and Lumber City
• Washout of bridge hwy 23/341

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

Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in the Big Bend region of Florida at 11 PM EDT. Helene moved quickly inland bringing wind gusts between 50 and 100 mph to portions of east and central Georgia. Widespread rainfall totals between 6 and 14 inches were observed in association with Helene across north and central Georgia. The highest rainfall amounts were primarily observed in portions of east-central Georgia and in the Atlanta Metropolitan area. Due to the prolonged heavy rain, numerous instances of flash flooding and river flooding were reported. The combination of strong winds and heavy rain also downed millions of trees with widespread power outages and numerous structures damaged or destroyed, mostly from falling trees. Ahead of Hurricane Helene, there were several showers/storms in the rainbands that had low-level rotation. One of these storms spawned a short-lived tornado occurred in Wheeler County during the evening of the 26th.

A brief tornado occurred in rural Wheeler County ahead of Hurricane Helene during the evening hours of September 26th. The tornado touched down and crossed Hwy 19 near the intersections of Ponderosa Road and Adams Cemetery Road. A few small trees were|snapped, but the main damage was to a mobile home/trailer that was completely destroyed with debris thrown across Hwy 19 into a field about 75 yards away. The mobile home/trailer was not fastened down and there are no pictures of what it looked like before it was hit.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

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

9 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 00:47 UTC, 9 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 01:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:10 UTC and running to 00:58 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 19:34 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.

Hazlehurst (AZE), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Robins AFB radar (KJGX), 94 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:57 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.