EF2 tornado, Plymouth to Waterford, Michigan, September 13, 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

September 13, 2008

Touchdown

9:18 PM EDT (01:18 UTC)

Lifted

9:21 PM EDT (01:21 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.6 miles (4.3 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$250,000

County

Wayne County

Touchdown point

42.380, -83.463

Lift-off point

42.391, -83.413

Record number

0809131918-01

A warm front combined with tropical moisture to spawn a tornado in Plymouth.

At 918 PM Saturday September 13th a tornado occurred in parts of Plymouth and Livonia in Wayne County. The Tornado path length was 2.6 miles and began just west of Starkweather Street near the railroad tracks in Plymouth and tracked eastward across the intersection of Interstates 96 and 275 and ended in Livonia at the intersection of Newburgh and Richfield Roads near Ladywood High School. The maximum path width of the tornado was roughly 200 yards in Plymouth and was 100 yards or less in most other locations along its path. Most of the damage along the path was to trees and was rated mostly at the EF0 level (less than 86 MPH). However, a short stretch of significant roof damage occurred in Plymouth to two apartment buildings in Lake Pointe Village and Brougham Manor. This damage was rated at the EF2 level, or roughly winds to 120 mph.

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.

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 01:02 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 Detroit radar (KDTX), 35 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:16 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 MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

30 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.