Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2008
EF1 tornado, Henryville, Indiana, January 29, 2008
This EF1 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Clark County on January 29, 2008, touching down at 7:58 PM EST and reaching 100 yards wide. It killed 1 person, and did $50,000 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.
EF065 to 85 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mphthis tornado
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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
- EF1
- Date
- January 29, 2008
- Touchdown
- 7:58 PM EST (00:58 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:59 PM EST (00:59 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 100 yards (91 m)
- Deaths
- 1
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $50,000
- County
- Clark County
- Touchdown point
- 38.551, -85.757
- Lift-off point
- 38.554, -85.755
- Record number
- 0801291858-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A powerful cold front sparked a lengthy squall line that crossed all of southern Indiana on the evening of January 29. A large number of locations had 60 to as much as 100 mph winds, causing extensive property damage. There were also a few small tornado spin-ups, one of which caused a fatality when a tree fell onto a mobile home near Henryville, Indiana.
A small EF1 tornado touched down briefly just northeast of Henryville. The tornado's 90mph winds felled trees in varying directions, one of which crashed onto a mobile home killing the occupant.
The deaths
1 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.
| Age | Sex | Where | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 33 | F | Mobile/Trailer Home | Direct |
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:43 UTC and running to 02:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:00 UTC | 08:29 UTC | Wind Advisory | LMK |
| 22:43 UTC | 02:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Watch | LMK |
| 00:19 UTC | 01:00 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LMK |
| 00:52 UTC | 01:30 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | LMK |
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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:46 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.
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 00:00Z
1.0 hours before the tornado, 195 km from the path. January 30, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -40224 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 787 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 80 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 33 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 394 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 451 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.8 K/km
Cncnati-Daytn, OH (KILN), 12:00Z
11.0 hours after it, 195 km from the path. January 30, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -116259 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 3 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 962 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 81 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 32 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 239 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 374 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 2.3 K/km
The radar
The Louisville radar (KLVX), 66 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:58 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:20 UTC | HAIL 0.88 | Marengo | Crawford, IN | POWER OUTAGES IN WESTERN CRAWFORD COUNTY |
| 00:36 UTC | TSTM WND GST 0 | Hardinsburg | Washington, IN | WIND GUSTS TO 60 MPH |
| 00:36 UTC | TSTM WND GST 60 | Hardinsburg | Washington, IN | WIND GUSTS TO 60 MPH |
| 00:40 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Salem | Washington, IN | BARN DESTROYED ON SOUTH CHURCH ROAD AND ANOTHER BARN DEMOLISHED ON FAIRVIEW ROAD |
| 00:45 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Corydon | Harrison, IN | SEVERAL DOWNED TREES BLOCKING ROADS |
| 00:45 UTC | TSTM WND GST 65 | Martinsburg | Washington, IN | |
| 00:48 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 6 W Seymour | Jackson, IN | TREE FELL ON HOUSE |
| 00:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Corydon | Harrison, IN | POWER OUTAGES IN NORTHERN CORYDON |
| 00:50 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | New Albany | Floyd, IN | NUMEROUS TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN ACROSS THE COUNTY AND SEVERAL ROADS ARE BLOCKED BY DOWNED TREES |
| 00:55 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Scottsburg | Scott, IN | ONE TRAILER BLOWN OVER AND NUMEROUS TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN |
| 01:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Henryville | Clark, IN | TRAILER BLOWN OVER WITH ONE CONFIRMED FATALITY |
| 01:00 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Sellersburg | Clark, IN | TREES DOWN ACROSS THE COUNTY |
| 01:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Madison | Jefferson, IN | TREES AND POWER LINES DOWN ACROSS THE COUNTY |
| 01:15 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | 8 Nw North Vernon | Jennings, IN | HOUSE TRAILER FLIPPED NEAR SCIPIO. |
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 IndianaEvery tornado in Indiana since 1950Warnings in force in Indiana nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of January 29, 2008
7 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 29 | 4:09 PM CST | EF1 | Cape Girardeau, MO to IL | 4.3 | 200 | $85,000 | ||
| January 29 | 5:07 PM CST | EF2 | Posey, IN | 7.0 | 100 | 2 | $250,000 | |
| January 29 | 7:20 PM EST | EF1 | Marion, IN | 0.1 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| January 29 | 7:40 PM EST | EF1 | Washington, IN | 10.7 | 200 | $60,000 | ||
| January 29 | 8:00 PM EST | EF1 | Jefferson, KY | 16.4 | 100 | $3.0 million | ||
| January 29 | 8:10 PM EST | EF1 | Scott, IN | 1.8 | 100 | $70,000 | ||
| January 29 | 9:00 PM EST | EF0 | Preble, OH | 2.0 | 80 | $25,000 |
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.