Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 1998
F3 tornado, Gordo to Northport, Alabama, April 8, 1998
From Gordo to Northport, this F3 tornado ran 19.5 miles across Pickens and Tuscaloosa counties on April 8, 1998, touching down at 7:01 PM CDT and reaching 300 yards wide. It killed nobody and injured 1, and did $820,000 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
- April 8, 1998
- Touchdown
- 7:01 PM CDT (00:01 UTC)
- Path length
- 19.5 miles (31.4 km)
- Path width
- 300 yards (274 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 1
- Property damage
- $820,000
- Counties
- Pickens and Tuscaloosa counties
- Touchdown point
- 33.280, -87.900
- Lift-off point
- 33.330, -87.580
- Record number
- 831
What the Weather Service recorded
This was the first of three tornadoes produced by one supercell thunderstorm moving across central Alabama. The tornado began at 7:01 pm CDT just south of Gordo in extreme eastern Pickens County and traveled east-northeast moving into Tuscaloosa County around 7:05 pm CDT. The tornado stayed mostly in rural areas crossing the swampy area of the Sipsey River and a number of small roads before crossing SR 21. It remained in rural areas crossing SR 171 and US 43. The tornado dissipated at Lake Tuscaloosa just south of where SR 69 crosses the lake.Emergency management reported that five single-family dwellings were destroyed along with major damage reported to one house and minor damage to 23 others. Eleven mobile homes were destroyed and three mobile homes were damaged. A couple from North Carolina camping at Lake Lurleen lost everything.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
35 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:26 UTC, 35 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:15 UTC.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23:26 UTC | 00:15 UTC | Tornado Warning | BMX |
| 00:37 UTC | 01:25 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 High Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 10:55 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.
Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 00:00Z
0.0 hours before the tornado, 90 km from the path. April 9, 1998.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 2060 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -18 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 595 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 632 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 79 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 148 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 284 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 12.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.1 K/km
Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 12:00Z
12.0 hours after it, 90 km from the path. April 9, 1998.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -78068 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 984 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 109 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 29 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -186 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -116 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
The surface observations
Tuscaloosa Municipal (TCL), 15 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22:50 UTC | 77 | 71.6 | 160° 8 kt | 1001.7 | TS HZ | |
| 23:50 UTC | 160° 10 kt | 20 | 1000 | TS | ||
| 00:50 UTC | 75.2 | 71.6 | 200° 10 kt | 15 | 999.7 | -TSRA |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 1998 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of April 8, 1998
13 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 8 | 4:40 AM CDT | F0 | Hays, TX | 0.5 | 100 | |||
| April 8 | 4:57 AM CDT | F0 | Hays, TX | 1.0 | 150 | |||
| April 8 | 7:43 AM CDT | F1 | Claiborne Parish, LA | 0.2 | 400 | $70,000 | ||
| April 8 | 10:20 AM CDT | F1 | Covington, AL | 0.1 | 30 | $30,000 | ||
| April 8 | 6:20 PM CDT | F0 | Crittenden, AR | 0.5 | 30 | $1,000 | ||
| April 8 | 7:00 PM CDT | F0 | Lawrence, TN | 0.5 | 200 | |||
| April 8 | 7:42 PM CDT | F5 | Oak Grove–Birmingham tornado, AL | 30.3 | 1,320 | 32 | 259 | $200 million |
| April 8 | 8:00 PM CDT | F1 | Coffee, TN | 1.0 | 200 | $50,000 | ||
| April 8 | 8:23 PM CDT | F1 | DeKalb, AL | 1.8 | 100 | $100,000 | ||
| April 8 | 8:56 PM CDT | F2 | St. Clair, AL | 14.4 | 200 | 2 | 12 | $2.0 million |
| April 8 | 11:30 PM EDT | F1 | Haralson, GA | 3.5 | 200 | $300,000 | ||
| April 8 | 12:20 AM EDT | F2 | Cobb, GA | 3.5 | 200 | 4 | $25 million | |
| April 8 | 12:35 AM EDT | F2 | DeKalb, GA | 19.0 | 800 | 1 | 10 | $75 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.