Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 1988
F3 tornado, Cullman County, Alabama, January 19, 1988
This F3 tornado ran 10.0 miles across Cullman County on January 19, 1988, touching down at 5:25 PM CST and reaching 440 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 35, and did $5 million to $50 million of property damage.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
F040 to 72 mph
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
F173 to 112 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
F2113 to 157 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.
F3158 to 206 mphthis tornado
Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.
F4207 to 260 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
F5261 to 318 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
- F3
- Date
- January 19, 1988
- Touchdown
- 5:25 PM CST (23:25 UTC)
- Path length
- 10.0 miles (16.1 km)
- Path width
- 440 yards (402 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 35
- Property damage
- $5 million to $50 million
- County
- Cullman County
- Touchdown point
- 34.120, -86.900
- Lift-off point
- 34.250, -86.770
- Record number
- 14
The warnings
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21:20 UTC | 22:15 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm Warning | BMX |
| 23:31 UTC | 00:00 UTC | Tornado Warning | BMX |
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. The outlook in force was issued at 07:22 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.
Centreville/Bibb, AL (KCKL), 00:00Z
0.6 hours after it, 147 km from the path. January 20, 1988.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 372 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -10 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 581 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 624 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 86 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 43 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 371 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 410 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 1.0
- Supercell composite
- 4.6
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.8 K/km
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1988 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of January 19, 1988
13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 19 | 6:20 AM CST | F2 | Ashley, AR | 15.0 | 600 | 13 | $500,000 to $5 million | |
| January 19 | 10:00 AM CST | F1 | Bolivar, MS | 11.0 | 33 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| January 19 | 10:12 AM CST | F2 | DeSoto, MS | 9.5 | 70 | 1 | $500,000 to $5 million | |
| January 19 | 11:10 AM CST | F1 | Attala, MS | 1.5 | 40 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| January 19 | 11:20 AM CST | F4 | Attala, MS | 13.0 | 700 | 1 | $500,000 to $5 million | |
| January 19 | 11:30 AM CST | F2 | Haywood, TN | 3.0 | 60 | 1 | 6 | $50,000 to $500,000 |
| January 19 | 11:52 AM CST | F3 | Fayette, TN | 22.0 | 200 | 3 | 24 | $500,000 to $5 million |
| January 19 | 11:58 AM CST | F2 | Gibson, TN | 4.0 | 60 | 1 | $50,000 to $500,000 | |
| January 19 | 12:20 PM CST | F3 | Clay, MS | 10.0 | 100 | $500,000 to $5 million | ||
| January 19 | 1:05 PM CST | F1 | Carroll, TN | 1.5 | 30 | $5,000 to $50,000 | ||
| January 19 | 3:20 PM CST | F1 | Lauderdale, MS | 1.0 | 30 | 10 | $5,000 to $50,000 | |
| January 19 | 6:15 PM CST | F1 | Bibb, AL | 6.0 | 440 | $50,000 to $500,000 | ||
| January 19 | 9:20 PM CST | F1 | Clay, AL | 5.0 | 100 | $50,000 to $500,000 |
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.