On Jan. 12, a tornado touched down in Paulding county and crossed to Cobb, making it the first tornado and major storm in Georgia of the new decade, and around one of the 30 to 40 tornados that Cobb county has seen since the 1950s. 

Although it was only an EF-0 and didn’t do much damage besides taking shingles off roofs or knocking down trees and is considered the weakest classification, the wind speeds were around 85 mph, just barely making it an EF-0, as EF-1 wind speeds are 86 mph.

It began near Macland Road, which is west of Hiram-Acworth Highway and north of Hiram. It measured around 400 yards in width and traveled 4.5 miles. A dozen trees were destroyed on Cristy Drive and in Cobb County, and around 15-20 trees were uprooted around Lost Mountain Road. 

Several power lines were down and plenty of trees were down near the intersection of Highland Falls Road and US 278. Weather service survey crew runs some tests to better understand whether damages were caused by straight-line wind or tornado damage. Straight-line wind is the wind that comes out of a thunderstorm, also known as Downburst.

The straight wind caused a sweetgum tree to fall onto a two-story home on Vineyard Road in Cobb county, causing a lot of damage. The owner was in the bedroom when the tree fell but was not severely injured. 

Other areas also suffered straight-line wind damage including a Scoggins Road south of Dallas in Paulding County. Trees were knocked down on Scoggins Road and also on Cole Lake Road. 

Forsyth County was lucky to have no fatalities or major injuries from this EF-0, as it could have been much worse. Even though it was a weak tornado, it could have knocked more trees down and caused a lot more damage than it did.