Tornadoes · United States · Indiana · 2008
EF0 tornado, Pyrmont, Indiana, May 30, 2008
This EF0 tornado ran 0.1 miles across Carroll County on May 30, 2008, touching down at 7:30 PM EDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.
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 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
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
- EF0
- Date
- May 30, 2008
- Touchdown
- 7:30 PM EDT (23:30 UTC)
- Path length
- 0.1 miles (0.2 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Carroll County
- Touchdown point
- 40.477, -86.672
- Lift-off point
- 40.477, -86.672
- Record number
- 0805301730-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A warm front moved through through the area earlier in the day allowing for warm temperatures over central Indiana. Severe storms formed in advance of a cold front that moved through later at night. These storms contained hail and damaging thunderstorm winds. Three tornadoes also formed with these storms including one that moved through the east side of Indianapolis. Heavy rain caused flash flooding across many locations.
A couple of trees sustained damage as a result of a supercell that formed a tornado that briefly touched down near a field. Wind speeds were around 65 mph based on damage indicators.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
0 minutes of warning. NWS IND issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:30 UTC, 0 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.
The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 19:01 UTC and running to 03:00 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19:01 UTC | 03:00 UTC | Tornado Watch | IND |
| 23:30 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | IND |
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 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:55 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.
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 12:00Z
11.5 hours before the tornado, 167 km from the path. May 30, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 57 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -325 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 1164 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 36 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 28 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 128 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 106 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.1 K/km
Lincoln, IL (KILX), 00:00Z
0.5 hours after it, 167 km from the path. May 31, 2008.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 1830 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -43 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 719 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 984 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 0 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 0 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:15 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | S Oxford | Benton, IN | |
| 22:20 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 2.85 | Fowler | Benton, IN | |
| 22:38 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | Brookston | White, IN | |
| 23:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Battle Ground | Tippecanoe, IN | SUBSTANTIAL TREE DAMAGE...SOME APPARENTLY TWISTED OFF. TIME IS ESTIMATED. |
| 23:20 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 10 Nw Battle Ground | White, IN | SPOTTY SECTIONS OF ROADS COVERED WITH WATER ALONG THE TIPPECANOE AND WHITE COUNTY BORDERS. |
| 23:30 UTC | TORNADO | 7 S Delphi | Carroll, IN | 2 TORNADOES JUST NORTH OF PYRMONT MOVING EAST. |
| 23:35 UTC | FLOOD | Reynolds | White, IN | ANKLE DEEP WATER OVER ROADS ALL OVER WHITE COUNTY...SOME IMPASSABLE...WATER OVER STATE ROAD 43 |
| 23:43 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 5 Ene Lafayette | Tippecanoe, IN | |
| 23:44 UTC | HAIL 0.25 | 6 Sw Flora | Carroll, IN | |
| 00:16 UTC | HAIL 0.75 | 8 W Kokomo | Howard, IN | LOCATED AT SR 22 AND 800 WEST |
| 00:18 UTC | FUNNEL CLOUD | 2 E Russiaville | Howard, IN | LOCATED AT 700 WEST AND 250 SOUTH |
| 00:19 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | Brookston | White, IN | ANKLE TO KNEE DEEP WATER FLOWING ACROSS ROADS...STATE ROADS 43 AND 18 CLOSED AT THIS TIME |
| 00:35 UTC | TSTM WND GST 58 | Kokomo | Howard, IN | |
| 00:56 UTC | FLASH FLOOD | 3 S Waynetown | Montgomery, IN | |
| 01:10 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Kokomo | Howard, IN | HALF INCH TREE LIMBS DOWN. MINOR FLOODING OF ROADWAYS. |
| 01:19 UTC | FLOOD | Brookston | White, IN | GREATER THAN 4 INCHES OF RAIN SINCE THIS AFTERNOON...WATER IS NOW RECEDING AND MOST ROADS ARE PASSABLE |
| 01:20 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.77 | 3 Ne Lafayette | Tippecanoe, IN | |
| 01:33 UTC | HEAVY RAIN 1.53 | Monticello | White, IN | TOTAL SO FAR |
| 02:30 UTC | FLOOD | Fowler | Benton, IN | MERIDIAN ROAD CLOSED FROM 100 NORTH TO 300 SOUTH. |
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 May 30, 2008
18 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 30 | 4:13 AM CDT | EF1 | Clarke, IA | 9.1 | 150 | $50,000 | ||
| May 30 | 4:51 AM CDT | EF1 | Warren, IA | 7.2 | 125 | $80,000 | ||
| May 30 | 5:07 AM CDT | EF2 | Marion, IA | 19.2 | 900 | 10 | $825,000 | |
| May 30 | 3:37 PM CDT | EF0 | Stevens, MN | 0.1 | 20 | |||
| May 30 | 4:25 PM CDT | EF1 | Pike, IL | 1.4 | 50 | $5,000 | ||
| May 30 | 5:10 PM CDT | EF1 | Lewis, MO | 3.4 | 70 | $10,000 | ||
| May 30 | 5:14 PM CDT | EF0 | Ralls, MO | 3.3 | 50 | $30,000 | ||
| May 30 | 6:15 PM EDT | EF1 | Wabash, IN | 0.2 | 50 | $100,000 | ||
| May 30 | 6:22 PM EDT | EF0 | Wabash, IN | 0.1 | 25 | $40,000 | ||
| May 30 | 6:15 PM CDT | EF0 | Pike, IL | 3.9 | 40 | |||
| May 30 | 7:17 PM CDT | EF1 | Morgan, IL | 4.8 | 100 | $192,000 | ||
| May 30 | 8:20 PM CDT | EF0 | Christian, IL | 0.0 | 10 | |||
| May 30 | 8:33 PM CDT | EF0 | Shelby, IL | 1.1 | 30 | |||
| May 30 | 10:27 PM EDT | EF2 | Marion, IN | 7.1 | 150 | 18 | $29 million | |
| May 30 | 10:35 PM EDT | EF1 | Hancock, IN | 4.5 | 200 | $500,000 | ||
| May 30 | 10:57 PM CDT | EF0 | Adams, IN to OH | 0.3 | 25 | $61,000 | ||
| May 30 | 12:28 AM EDT | EF0 | Putnam, OH | 3.2 | 464 | $1.2 million | ||
| May 30 | 1:29 AM EDT | EF2 | Hancock, OH | 8.3 | 100 | 6 | $1.8 million |
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.