EF0 tornado, Pumpkin Center to Brooksville, Alabama, April 19, 2009

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 19, 2009

Touchdown

6:43 PM CDT (23:43 UTC)

Lifted

6:47 PM CDT (23:47 UTC)

On the ground

4 minutes

Path length

2.0 miles (3.2 km)

Path width

50 yards (46 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$25,000

County

Morgan County

Touchdown point

34.471, -87.084

Lift-off point

34.479, -87.050

Record number

0904191743-01

A strong low pressure system tracking northeast from the southern Ozarks into the Ohio Valley brought a cold front into the central Tennessee Valley during the late afternoon and evening hours of the 19th. Supercells erupted across northern Mississippi, moving into far northwest Alabama shortly before 5 pm CDT. Initially, these storms were large hail producers, with up to baseball sized hail reported in the town of Red Bay in Franklin County. As the early evening progressed, this supercell tracked into Lawrence and Morgan Counties producing wind damage and at least six tornadoes as it moved east. A male individual was killed in the town of Priceville in Morgan County when a tree was knocked down onto his trailer home. The thunderstorms evolved into a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) as they moved into Marshall and DeKalb Counties. Another tornado developed rapidly in the community of Asbury in Marshall County, killing one and critically injurying another when their mobile home was destroyed. The QLCS progressed into DeKalb County producing additional tornado damage.

An EF-0 tornado snapped and uprooted several large trees between Punkin Center and Neel, just north of Iron Man Road. It also downed a tree on a mobile home off of Blankenship Road, but luckily no one was injured. Additional trees were trees were snapped and uprooted along Hazel Street.

A EF-0 tornado snapped and uprooted numerous large pine trees between Shoal Creek Road and Natural Bridge Road. Sporadic tree and structural damage to a shed occurred along Natural Bridge Road, which is just north of Pine Road. Estimated peak wind speed was 85 mph.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 23:17 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:45 UTC.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 21:30 UTC and running to 01:20 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 20:01 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), 103 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 23:42 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 2009 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

18 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.