EF1 tornado, Chapel Hill to Lithia Spgs, Georgia, March 7, 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

March 7, 2008

Touchdown

7:25 PM EST (00:25 UTC)

Lifted

7:40 PM EST (00:40 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

7.0 miles (11.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

1

Property damage

$2.0 million

County

Douglas County

Touchdown point

33.688, -84.725

Lift-off point

33.775, -84.663

Record number

0803071825-01

2 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS FFC, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 110 mph.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

A strong arctic cold front and very deep upper trough were sweeping from the central into the eastern U.S. from the 7th into the 8th. A surface low pressure area was developing in response to this synoptic pattern along the southeast U.S. coast. Widespread showers and thunderstorms accompanied the system through Georgia during the morning hours, moving out of the region during the early afternoon. However, additional scattered showers and thunderstorms developed during the evening hours in advance of the strong cold front. As this occurred, a couple of these thunderstorms, albeit small, became severe. One spawned an EF1 tornado in the Chapel Hill area of Douglas county, causing significant damage to a large grocery store and at least 50 homes.

A storm damage survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia concluded that a tornado, with a maximum intensity of EF1, tracked nearly seven miles across eastern Douglas county. Maximum path width was determined to be 100 yards and maximum wind speeds were estimated at 110 mph, near the upper end of the EF1 scale. The tornado, which began as an EF0 tornado, touched down in the 4300 block of Hampton Mill Drive in Chapel Hill, or about 4 miles south-southeast of Douglasville. Damage at this location was confined to minor roof damage and several snapped trees. The tornado continued across Stratford Drive as an EF0 where several more trees were snapped or bent over and a fence was blown down. The tornado then strengthened to an EF1 tornado as it crossed into a shopping center at the intersection of Bomar and Chapel Hill Roads. A Kroger grocery store sustained considerable damage when an air conditioning unit was blown off the roof, causing considerable damage to the roof of the building. An employee of the Kroger store was injured with a broken arm during the tornado. The tornado then continued as an EF1 into the Ashland Subdivision where numerous homes sustained minor roof damage and many trees were either uprooted or snapped. A number of homes in this area also sustained broken windows. A portion of the Kroger grocery store roof was found scattered about this neighborhood. As the EF1 continued on its north-northeastward track from this area, a mobile home was destroyed when a large pine tree fell on the structure. A number of large trees were also uprooted in the area. A trampoline was found up in the trees. The tornado than continued toward Ossabaw Court and Brookhollow, where winds associated with the tornado were estimated to have reached their maximum intensity of 110 mph. Numerous trees were blown down, the north side of a home was destroyed, a garage was damaged, a chimney blown down, and several homes sustained roof damage. As the tornado continued toward Warren and Pope Road, a shed was destroyed, several more large trees were uprooted, and shingles were blown off the roofs of several homes. Debris throughout the area was scattered up to 200 yards from its origin. The tornado continued on its north-northeastward track and began to weaken back to an EF0 as it tracked across Georgia Highway 92 and into the southern portions of the Lithia Springs area. A few large trees were blown down along Georgia Highway 92 just west of Bomar Road. In the southern part of Lithia Springs, several homes on Annette Drive suffered minor roof damage, a fence was blown down, a basketball goal blown over, and several trees were uprooted. The tornado ended near the intersection of Beaver Run Creek Road and Vulcan Drive, where several trees were down.||All together, one mobile home and one site-built home were destroyed, 10 homes sustained major damage, 52 sustained minor damage, 1 business had major damage, and 1 business had minor damage.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 19:52 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), 43 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:23 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

11 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.