Tornadoes · United States · Georgia · 2005
F1 tornado, Hoboken, Georgia, December 5, 2005
This F1 tornado ran 1.5 miles across Brantley County on December 5, 2005, touching down at 4:30 PM EST and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 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.
F3158 to 206 mph
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- F1
- Date
- December 5, 2005
- Touchdown
- 4:30 PM EST (21:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 1.5 miles (2.4 km)
- Path width
- 75 yards (69 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Brantley County
- Touchdown point
- 31.180, -82.130
- Lift-off point
- 31.180, -82.130
- Record number
- 507
What the Weather Service recorded
A bowing squall line intercepted a northeast moving cell east of the squall line. The merge increased surface inflow into the leading cell and produced a brief mini-supercell tornado near Hoboken. At 430 pm, a trained storm spotter reported that the front part of a home was blown off along Highway 121 in Hoboken. A shed was also damaged and trees were sheared off. An ambulance was dispatched to a possible injury but no injuries were reported at the scene. An NWS Storm Survey conducted the following day revealed primarily F0 damage with some F1 damage in Hoboken. Numerous trees were snapped which caused damage to many homes and sheds. A news broadcast the following day in Hoboken (Channel 4 Jacksonville) showed a mobile home pushed 15 feet off of its foundation, reported major damage to 9 homes and minor damage to 40 homes in Hoboken. Several roofs were stripped off as well.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16:00 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Lake Wind Advisory | JAX |
| 21:16 UTC | 22:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | JAX |
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 forecast that day
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 19:17 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 air that afternoon
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.
Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 12:00Z
9.5 hours before the tornado, 86 km from the path. December 5, 2005.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -89403 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 953 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 42 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 30 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 197 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 197 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 1.9 K/km
Jacksonville, FL (KJAX), 00:00Z
2.5 hours after it, 86 km from the path. December 6, 2005.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 276 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -5 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 269 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 608 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 31 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 35 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 176 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 141 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 0.9
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.9 K/km
The radar
The Jacksonville radar (KJAX), 87 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:28 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20:45 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 5 S Manor | Ware, GA | FUNNEL CLOUD REPORTED BY SPOTTER ABOUT 5 MILES SOUTH OF MANOR. |
| 21:27 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 4 W Hoboken | Brantley, GA | |
| 21:30 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Hoboken | Brantley, GA | FRONT OF HOUSE BLOWN OFF ALONG HIGHWAY 121 IN HOBOKEN. SHED DAMAGED. PINE TREE SHEARED OFF. AMBULANCE DISPATCHED TO POSSIBLE INJURY. POSSIBLE TORNADO. |
| 21:30 UTC | TORNADO | Hoboken | Brantley, GA | PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF F0 OR WEAK F1 TORNADO ON NORTH SIDE OF HOBOKEN. MAINLY TREE DAMAGE. ONE SHED SUSTAINED SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE. DAMAGE TO SEVERAL HOMES CONSISTING OF SHINGLE DAMAGE AND DAMAGE FROM FALLING TREES. |
| 21:30 UTC | TORNADO | Hoboken | Brantley, GA | PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF F0 OR WEAK F1 TORNADO ON NORTH SIDE OF HOBOKEN. MAINLY TREE DAMAGE. ONE SHED SUSTAINED SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE. MINOR DAMAGE TO SEVERAL HOMES CONSISTING OF SHINGLE DAMAGE AND DAMAGE FROM FALLING TREE |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2005 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of December 5, 2005
5 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 5 | 11:45 AM EST | F1 | Worth, GA | 1.1 | 75 | 2 | $750,000 | |
| December 5 | 1:10 PM EST | F1 | Wakulla, FL | 4.0 | 100 | $1.3 million | ||
| December 5 | 1:40 PM EST | F0 | Leon, FL | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| December 5 | 2:45 PM EST | F0 | Lanier, GA | 0.2 | 30 | |||
| December 5 | 3:30 PM EST | F2 | Clinch, GA | 3.0 | 100 |
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.