EF2 tornado, Tupelo to Pikeville, Alabama, December 10, 2008

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

December 10, 2008

Touchdown

1:02 AM CST (07:02 UTC)

Lifted

1:10 AM CST (07:10 UTC)

On the ground

8 minutes

Path length

4.5 miles (7.2 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$300,000

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

34.738, -86.069

Lift-off point

34.767, -85.999

Record number

0812100102-01

A warm front pushed northeast from Mississippi into northern Alabama producing widespread rainfall during the afternoon of the 9th. A squall line then produced another round of heavy rainfall, along with several small bow echoes. One of these stronger bow echoes resulted in an EF-2 tornado in Jackson County after midnight on the 10th.||Widespread rain amounts of 3 to 5 inches, locally near 6 inches, fell in Madison, Limestone, Morgan, and Lawrence counties resulting in widespread river and local flash flooding.

A tornado struck portions of central Jackson county around 1 AM CST Wednesday morning. This tornado initially snapped several cedar trees near county road 21, before toppling three TVA high voltage power line towers near Pikeville Alabama. It then rapidly proceeded northeast snapping trees, collapsing several barns, and ripping off roofs before lifting near the end of county road 34. According to Jackson County Emergency Management, the tornado and adjacent straight-line winds were to blame for up to twenty homes being damaged. Three mobile homes were destroyed and seven more were damaged. Nine barns were destroyed and three were damaged. The maximum wind speed with this tornado was estimated at 125 mph.

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

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:52 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), 20 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:03 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

6 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.