F1 tornado, Colbert Hgts, Alabama, April 7, 2006

1. F040 to 72 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. F173 to 112 mphthis tornado

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. F4207 to 260 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. 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.

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

F1

Date

April 7, 2006

Touchdown

6:55 PM CDT (23:55 UTC)

Path length

10.0 miles (16.1 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$70,000

County

Colbert County

Touchdown point

34.670, -87.700

Lift-off point

34.700, -87.520

Record number

318

A tornado with maximum estimated winds of around 90 miles an hour moved northeast from near Colbert Heights elementary school and continued east and northeast to the Colbert Heights high school. Numerous trees were down in the path of the tornado. The inital tornado damage occurred at the Colbert Heights elementary school, where a fence at the baseball field at the elementary school was heavily damaged. A manufactured home across from the elementary school suffered extensive roof and porch damage. Most of the roof was blown nearly 100 yards behind the home. At Colbert Heights high school, damage included a scoreboard, which was blown and twisted off of its base and a nearby baseball dugout at the high school lost its roof. Also, a large outdoor antenna at the high school was twisted in two. There was continuous light tree damage until the tornado reached the Leighton community, where a large barn suffered extensive roof damage. Corn stalks from a nearby field were found embedded between the remaining barn walls. The tornado uprooted five large oak trees before abruptly dissipating in Leighton.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

50 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:05 UTC, 50 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 00:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:18 UTC and running to 00:28 UTC.

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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:32 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.

Muscle Shoals Regional (MSL), 7 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 110 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:53 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 2006 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

46 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.