EF2 tornado, Morrow, Georgia, May 11, 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 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

May 11, 2008

Touchdown

5:17 AM EDT (09:17 UTC)

Lifted

5:45 AM EDT (09:45 UTC)

On the ground

28 minutes

Path length

17.5 miles (28.2 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$7.5 million

Counties

Clayton, Henry, Rockdale and Newton counties

Touchdown point

33.621, -84.281

Lift-off point

33.563, -84.003

Record number

0805110317-01

A stationary front was draped across north Georgia early on May 10th with an active northwest flow aloft. Meanwhile...a vigorous short wave aloft was approaching the area from the southern plains. The stationary front provided the focus for two rounds of showers and thunderstorms, one early in the morning on the 10th and another in the afternoon. The activity tracked east-southeast with the upper flow aloft, mainly across north Georgia during the early morning and across central Georgia during the afternoon. An isolated strong supercell also tracked across the southern part of central Georgia during the evening. After a lull of convective activity for about four hours, intense multicell thunderstorms tracked into the area from Alabama after midnight and before dawn on the 11th. As these thunderstorms tracked across west central and central Georgia, 15 tornadoes were identified by subsequent surveys making this the most significant tornado outbreak to affect the area since the Katrina-associated tornadoes on August 29, 2005. Millions of dollars of property damage were reported as many homes were destroyed from these tornadoes from the western and southern suburbs of Atlanta southeastward across Macon, Dublin, and other counties in east central and southeast Georgia. Many of these counties were eligible for disaster assistance from the federal government.||In addition to the tornadoes and thunderstorm winds that caused extensive damage in dozens of counties across north and central Georgia during the early morning hours of May 11th, strong gradient winds developed on the back side of the strong cold front that moved through the area as low pressure intensified across the mid-Atlantic region. The strong winds combined with wet ground resulted in dozens of trees being blown down in some north Georgia counties. There were also two deaths as a result of downed trees in Barrow and Gwinnett county, all non-thunderstorm-related winds.

A survey conducted by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Peachtree City, Georgia confirmed that an EF2 tornado with maximum winds of 130 mph touched down in far northeast Clayton county, approximately four miles northeast of Morrow, and tracked on the ground for nearly 19 miles from northeast Clayton into northern Henry, southern Rockdale, and into western Newton county before finally lifting. Within Clayton county the tornado path was about 2.75 miles long with a maximum path width of 100 yards. Shortly after touchdown, the tornado caused extensive and significant damage within a 2.5 square mile area of the Ellenwood community. There were 185 private dwellings damaged, 53 of which were destroyed or left uninhabitable. At least 500 residents were displaced from their homes. Numerous trees and power lines were also down in the area. By far, the worst damage caused by this tornado occurred within Clayton county as the tornado weakened as it tracked further east into Henry, Rockdale, and Newton county. Despite the extensive damage, no injuries were reported.

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

25 minutes of warning. NWS FFC issued a tornado warning for this county at 08:52 UTC, 25 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 09:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 06:45 UTC and running to 09:58 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, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 06:03 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.

Atlanta International Airport (ATL), 28 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Atlanta radar (KFFC), 47 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 09:17 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

41 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.