Tornadoes · United States · Georgia · 2008

EF0 tornado, Enterprise to Mayhaw, Georgia, August 25, 2008

From Enterprise to Mayhaw, this EF0 tornado ran 0.9 miles across Miller County on August 25, 2008, touching down at 10:02 PM EDT and reaching 75 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $75,000 of property damage.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF0
Date
August 25, 2008
Touchdown
10:02 PM EDT (02:02 UTC)
Lifted
10:05 PM EDT (02:05 UTC)
On the ground
3 minutes
Path length
0.9 miles (1.5 km)
Path width
75 yards (69 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
Property damage
$75,000
County
Miller County
Touchdown point
31.166, -84.825
Lift-off point
31.178, -84.817
Record number
0808252002-01

What the Weather Service recorded

Thunderstorms from Fay produced two tornadoes, an EF0 in Miller County and EF1 in Cook County.

A tornado touched down about three miles north of Enterprise. It first uprooted trees and tore the roof off a home on Mayhaw Road, then traveled norrheast where it damaged a barn and destroyed a irrigation pivot on Joe Shingler Road.

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

The warnings

33 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:29 UTC, 33 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

Issued (UTC)ExpiredProductOffice
12:29 UTC20:00 UTCTornado WatchTAE
15:30 UTC19:09 UTCFlash Flood WatchTAE
00:51 UTC01:30 UTCTornado WarningTAE
01:29 UTC02:15 UTCTornado WarningTAE
02:16 UTC02:26 UTCTornado WarningTAE
06:37 UTC14:00 UTCTornado WatchTAE
14:03 UTC23:00 UTCTornado WatchTAE
18:00 UTC05:07 UTCFlood WarningTAE

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 General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:36 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.

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 00:00Z

2.0 hours before the tornado, 99 km from the path. August 26, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 2008-08-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2334 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 637 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 00:00Z on 2008-08-26The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 112 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 36 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2334 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2970 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
637 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
36 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
16 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
112 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
167 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.1
Supercell composite
6.9
0-3 km lapse rate
6.4 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Tallahassee Rgnl, FL (KTLH), 12:00Z

10.0 hours after it, 99 km from the path. August 26, 2008.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 2008-08-26Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 2544 joules per kilogram, CIN -1, lifted condensation level 496 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Tallahassee Rgnl, FL at 12:00Z on 2008-08-26The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 168 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 29 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
2544 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-1 J/kg
Surface CAPE
2682 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
496 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
29 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
168 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
200 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
1.2
Supercell composite
8.0
0-3 km lapse rate
5.5 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

What was reported nearby

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

Time (UTC)ReportWhereCountyRemark
02:02 UTCTORNADOColquittMiller, GATREES DOWN AND TIN ROOF REMOVED FROM RESIDENCE AT 1338 MAYHAW ROAD.
02:04 UTCTORNADOColquittMiller, GABARN DAMAGED AT 1107 SHINGLER ROAD.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2008 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of August 25, 2008

11 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
August 257:25 AM CDTEF0Lowndes, AL0.125$2,000
August 258:18 AM CDTEF0Pike, AL0.575$50,000
August 258:20 AM CDTEF1Dale, AL0.475$30,000
August 2510:56 AM CDTEF1St. Clair, AL3.4100$20,000
August 2511:25 AM CDTEF1Blount, AL0.460$10,000
August 2512:06 PM CDTEF2Cleburne, AL0.4400$100,000
August 2512:11 PM CDTEF1Calhoun, AL0.050$10,000
August 2512:19 PM CDTEF1Calhoun, AL1.1250$150,000
August 255:26 PM CDTEF0Jackson, FL0.250
August 255:58 PM CDTEF0Pike, AL0.020$2,000
August 257:26 PM CDTEF1Houston, AL0.250$75,000

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.