EF0 tornado, Oleander to Grant, Alabama, April 11, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado

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

2. EF186 to 110 mph

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

3. EF2111 to 135 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. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

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

6. EF5over 200 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

EF0

Date

April 11, 2008

Touchdown

2:16 PM CDT (19:16 UTC)

Lifted

2:18 PM CDT (19:18 UTC)

On the ground

2 minutes

Path length

1.6 miles (2.6 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$2,000

County

Marshall County

Touchdown point

34.403, -86.512

Lift-off point

34.420, -86.492

Record number

0804111316-01

A strong cold front pushed into northwest Alabama during the early afternoon hours on April 11th and moved east into Georgia after midnight. Unstable air and strong wind fields lead to numerous severe thunderstorms which produced large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes.

The first area, near Union Grove, found damage consistent with an EF-0 tornado. The tornado produced slight damage to the back of one home, destroyed a shed, and several trees were uprooted. The tornado damage path was approximately 1.6 miles in length, and approximately 100 feet in width. Maximum wind speeds were approximately 85 mph with this tornado.

Damage consistent with an EF-0 Tornado was found. The tornado exhibited maximum winds of 75 mph, maximum path width of 300 feet, and a path length of approximately 1.2 miles. This tornado uprooted several trees, and caused minor roof damage to several barn structures and homes.

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

8 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 19:08 UTC, 8 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 19:45 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:53 UTC and running to 20:00 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 Slight Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 16:22 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 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.

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 69 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 19:16 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 2008 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

22 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.