EF1 tornado, Sale City, Georgia, March 16, 2025

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

March 16, 2025

Touchdown

6:28 AM EDT (10:28 UTC)

Lifted

6:36 AM EDT (10:36 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

5.3 miles (8.5 km)

Path width

1,200 yards (1097 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Mitchell County

Touchdown point

31.245, -84.076

Lift-off point

31.294, -84.007

Record number

2503160428-01

33 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS TAE, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 104 mph.

• Three wooden high transmission poles broken
• Trunks twisted and snapped
• Only one section of the wall came down
• Six or more tree trunks snapped at SW end of field

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

A moist and unstable airmass with steep mid-level lapse rates ahead of a cold front resulted in scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms. Large hail occurred across southeast Alabama, and sporadic wind damage occurred across the Florida panhandle. One tornado occurred in southwest Georgia.

This tornado was rated EF1 with max winds estimated at 105 mph. The tornado began south of Highway 37 in an open field between Rigsby Lake and Antioch Road, where it snapped and uprooted a few hardwood trees, and also bent a portion of a center-pivot irrigation apparatus. It then moved quickly northeast and crossed Highway 37 into Pebble City, where it destroyed two structures: A tin volunteer fire department building, and a community/voting center, which collapsed onto itself when the supporting cinder blocks gave way. The tornado also snapped numerous softwood trees behind both of these structures. As it raced northeastward towards Sale City Road, the tornado snapped more softwood trees and a few wooden power poles. When it reached Millard Road, the tornado continued to snap trees, with more extensive tree damage being noted along Massey Bog Road. As it moved just east of Highway 93 along Old Doerun Road, the tornado caused a double-wide manufactured home with straps to shift approximately 18 inches off its cinder block foundation, blew out the windows of two single family homes, and uprooted several softwood trees. Before it dissipated at Greenough Road, the tornado uprooted another softwood tree.

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

13 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 10:15 UTC, 13 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 10:42 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 06:18 UTC and running to 11:51 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. The outlook in force was issued at 05:24 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 Tallahassee radar (KTLH), 101 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:24 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 2025 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.