EF1 tornado, Capel to Cairo, Georgia, February 18, 2008

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

February 18, 2008

Touchdown

2:00 AM EST (07:00 UTC)

Lifted

2:04 AM EST (07:04 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

3.9 miles (6.3 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$150,000

County

Grady County

Touchdown point

30.941, -84.200

Lift-off point

30.977, -84.148

Record number

0802180100-01

Severe thunderstorms produced several reports of wind damage and a tornado across portions of southwest Georgia.

The same supercell thunderstorm which spawned the brief EF0 tornado in southeast Decatur County produced an EF1 tornado just west of State Highway 93 on Courtney Lane. Mobile homes along Courtney Lane suffered minor roof damage and skirting was torn from their bases. Also, numerous trees were snapped or uprooted. The tornado traveled northeast and uprooted several trees near two homes on Shorty Lane. A mobile home lost portions of its roof. A single family home lost a few shingles off its roof. Two homes east of Shorty Lane on Wilcox Road were damaged. The tornado then moved along Pine Forest Road east of State Highway 111. About a mile up Pine Forest Road, a mobile home was destroyed with the free standing carport tossed 200 yards into the nearby forest. The occupant of the mobile home was injured when it rolled over. The roof and exterior walls were destroyed. The frame remained attached to the undercarriage of the mobile home.

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

27 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 06:33 UTC, 27 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 07:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:03 UTC and running to 08:00 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 05:58 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), 64 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:01 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

5 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.