Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 2000
F1 tornado, Snowdoun to Pike Road, Alabama, March 19, 2000
From Snowdoun to Pike Road, this F1 tornado ran 3.3 miles across Montgomery County on March 19, 2000, touching down at 5:25 PM CST and reaching 60 yards wide. It killed nobody, and did $20,000 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 mphthis tornado
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 mph
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
- F1
- Date
- March 19, 2000
- Touchdown
- 5:25 PM CST (23:25 UTC)
- Path length
- 3.3 miles (5.3 km)
- Path width
- 60 yards (55 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- Property damage
- $20,000
- County
- Montgomery County
- Touchdown point
- 32.230, -86.230
- Lift-off point
- 32.220, -86.180
- Record number
- 77
What the Weather Service recorded
A small tornado touched down west of CR 39 near the end of Horse Farm Road and traveled nearly due east. A number of trees were downed and several structures sustained minor roof damage. The tornado crossed CR 39 and moved along a residential road with trees and limbs downed. One house in an area of well built, larger homes lost a portion of the southeast corner of the roof. Beginning: 32 14.093/86 13.529 End: 32 14.152/86 10.144
What was believed to be a small tornado touched down briefly on the south side of CR 40 mostly in open field area. One mobile home was damaged seriously with some of the insulation from the home blown upward into trees surrounding the home. Little other damage occurred. Beginning: 32 16.445/86 07.848 End: 32 16.589/86 07.432
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.
| Issued (UTC) | Expired | Product | Office |
|---|---|---|---|
| 22:54 UTC | 23:45 UTC | Severe Thunderstorm 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 Slight Risk. 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.
Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 12:00Z
11.4 hours before the tornado, 119 km from the path. March 19, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- 0 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 4 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 504 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 41 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 52 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 562 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 746 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.4
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 3.4 K/km
Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 00:00Z
0.6 hours after it, 119 km from the path. March 20, 2000.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 0 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- -46838 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 6 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 860 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 64 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 19 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- -180 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- -102 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.0
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 4.9 K/km
The surface observations
Montgomery/Dannelly (MGM), 20 km from the path, in the two hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Temp (°F) | Dew point (°F) | Wind | Gust (kt) | Pressure (mb) | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21:53 UTC | 65 | 59 | 140° 17 kt | 27 | 1006.4 | |
| 22:32 UTC | 62.6 | 60.8 | 150° 19 kt | 26 | 1006.4 | RA BR |
| 22:39 UTC | 62.6 | 60.8 | 140° 19 kt | 26 | 1005.8 | RA BR |
| 22:46 UTC | 62.6 | 60.8 | 170° 11 kt | 26 | 1006.4 | -RA BR |
| 22:53 UTC | 59 | 56 | 290° 19 kt | 27 | 1008.8 | RA BR |
| 23:01 UTC | 55.4 | 55.4 | 350° 9 kt | 1008.5 | +TSRA BR | |
| 23:05 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 310° 11 kt | 19 | 1009.1 | +TSRA BR |
| 23:09 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 320° 8 kt | 19 | 1008.8 | +TSRA BR |
| 23:12 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 320° 9 kt | 19 | 1008.5 | +TSRA BR |
| 23:16 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 320° 7 kt | 1008.1 | +TSRA BR | |
| 23:24 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 300° 7 kt | 1009.1 | TSRA BR | |
| 23:26 UTC | 55.4 | 53.6 | 300° 6 kt | 1009.1 | TSRA BR | |
| 23:35 UTC | 57.2 | 53.6 | 250° 3 kt | 1009.8 | TSRA BR | |
| 23:42 UTC | 55.4 | 55.4 | 280° 4 kt | 1009.5 | +TSRA BR | |
| 23:46 UTC | 55.4 | 55.4 | 290° 4 kt | 1009.1 | +RA BR | |
| 23:53 UTC | 56 | 55 | 330° 4 kt | 1009.1 | RA BR | |
| 00:27 UTC | 55.4 | 55.4 | 140° 3 kt | 1009.1 | -RA | |
| 00:53 UTC | 56 | 55 | 0° 0 kt | 1008.8 | -RA |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2000 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of March 19, 2000
1 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
| Date | Time | Rating | Where | Path (mi) | Width (yd) | Deaths | Injuries | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 19 | 5:38 PM CST | F0 | Montgomery, AL | 0.4 | 20 | $30,000 |
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.