F0 tornado, Elba to Roeton, Alabama, November 15, 2006

1. F040 to 72 mphthis tornado

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

2. F173 to 112 mph

   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

F0

Date

November 15, 2006

Touchdown

11:53 AM CST (17:53 UTC)

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

Property damage

$350,000

County

Coffee County

Touchdown point

31.440, -86.050

Lift-off point

31.470, -86.010

Record number

1044

A squall line affected the region on the 15th. Isolated supercell thunderstorms developed ahead of the line across southeast Alabama during the afternoon and produced several tornadoes.

A tornado touched down just northeast of Elba. Most of the damage occurred along County Roads 235 and 279 and State Highway 125. Several mobile homes and sheds were destroyed. Two persons were injured when their doublewide mobile home was tossed into trees. Among the structures damaged were a collection tank and four roll-off containers at a county landfill, a home which lost its front porch and roof, and several trailers. There were numerous trees and utility poles uprooted.

The same supercell which caused F1 damage northeast of Elba spun up another tornado just northwest of Roeton. The F0 tornado uprooted some trees before it crossed into Pike County, AL (See Storm Data for Alabama, Central, for more information).

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS TAE issued a tornado warning for this county at 17:31 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 18:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 16:03 UTC and running to 23:36 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 16:29 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.

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

27 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.