EF0 tornado, Tallapoosa, Georgia, December 10, 2008

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.

Rating

EF0

Date

December 10, 2008

Touchdown

7:41 AM EST (12:41 UTC)

Lifted

7:42 AM EST (12:42 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$600,000

County

Haralson County

Touchdown point

33.767, -85.232

Lift-off point

33.767, -85.230

Record number

0812100641-01

A very deep upper trough, located across the central United States, moved very slowly toward the eastern states between December 10th and December 11th. Deep southwest flow aloft and at the surface provided the area with copious Gulf moisture. Temperatures were unseasonably warm. A slow moving Pacific frontal system accompanied the upper-level trough and moved across the area from west to east during the two-day period. Slow moving, heavy rain and thunderstorms accompanied the upper trough and frontal system. Repeated rounds of heavy rain resulted in widespread flooding and some flash flooding across northwest Georgia counties, where four to five inches of rain fell in the two-day period, as well as in some central Georgia counties, where up to six inches of rain fell in the Sumter and Webster county areas. Several creeks, streams, and smaller rivers rose above flood stage in northwest and the southwestern parts of central Georgia during a three day period from the 10th to the 13th. Isolated severe thunderstorms were also noted at the beginning of the event, including one which spawned a brief EF0 tornado in Haralson county early on the 10th causing damage to a high school.

A damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, GA concluded that a brief EF0 tornado touched down at the Haralson County High School, approximately three miles east-northeast of Tallapoosa. The tornado traveled on the ground between 100 and 150 yards with a maximum path width of 50 yards. The main classroom building suffered the majority of the damage, where a heating and air conditioning unit was blown off the roof and into the adjacent parking lot, causing minor damage to a few cars. A few windows were also broken and an outdoor scoreboard was destroyed. Several small trees on the campus were snapped, including one which fell onto the visitor's bleachers.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 07:41 UTC and running to 12:47 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:52 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 Atlanta radar (KFFC), 76 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 12:41 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 2008 tornado in GeorgiaEvery tornado in Georgia since 1950Warnings in force in Georgia nowThe forecast where you are

6 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.