Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 2009
EF0 tornado, Elkmont, Alabama, July 28, 2009
This EF0 tornado ran 0.2 miles across Limestone County on July 28, 2009, touching down at 7:55 PM CDT and reaching 30 yards wide. It killed nobody.
The rating scale
Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.
EF065 to 85 mphthis tornado
Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.
EF186 to 110 mph
Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.
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.
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.
EF4166 to 200 mph
Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.
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.
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.
The record
- Rating
- EF0
- Date
- July 28, 2009
- Touchdown
- 7:55 PM CDT (00:55 UTC)
- Lifted
- 7:56 PM CDT (00:56 UTC)
- On the ground
- 1 minutes
- Path length
- 0.2 miles (0.3 km)
- Path width
- 30 yards (27 m)
- Deaths
- 0
- Injuries
- 0
- County
- Limestone County
- Touchdown point
- 34.951, -86.996
- Lift-off point
- 34.953, -86.994
- Record number
- 0907281855-01
What the Weather Service recorded
A low topped miniature supercell with no cloud to ground lightning developed within a tropical and unstable airmass during the early evening hours. The cell produced a brief tornado in the community of Elkmont, knocking down trees and power lines.
A small tornado with estimated peak winds of 75 mph touched down on the west side of Highway 127 in the Elkmont community. The tornado tracked northeast before lifting in a heavily forested area on the east side of Highway 127. One local resident reported seeing the tornado. Several small trees were snapped and a few larger trees were also snapped in this area.
From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.
The warnings
No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down.
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 forecast that day
The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a General Thunderstorms Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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 air that afternoon
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.
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 00:00Z
0.9 hours before the tornado, 136 km from the path. July 29, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 644 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- 0 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 951 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 470 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 24 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 111 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 116 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.2
- Supercell composite
- 1.3
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
Nashville Metro, TN (KBNA), 12:00Z
11.1 hours after it, 136 km from the path. July 29, 2009.
- Mixed-layer CAPE
- 766 J/kg
- Mixed-layer CIN
- 0 J/kg
- Surface CAPE
- 837 J/kg
- Mixed-layer LCL
- 466 m above ground
- 0-6 km bulk shear
- 23 kt
- 0-1 km bulk shear
- 21 kt
- 0-1 km storm-relative helicity
- 78 m²/s²
- 0-3 km storm-relative helicity
- 51 m²/s²
- Significant tornado parameter
- 0.0
- Supercell composite
- 0.7
- 0-3 km lapse rate
- 5.2 K/km
The radar
The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:55 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.
What was reported nearby
Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.
| Time (UTC) | Report | Where | County | Remark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:55 UTC | TSTM WND DMG | Elkmont | Limestone, AL | TREES AND POWERLINES DOWN IN THE ELKMONT AREA |
| 00:55 UTC | TORNADO | 2 Nw Elkmont | Limestone, AL | A TORNADO TOUCHED DOWN BRIEFLY ALONG HIGHWAY 127 SNAPPING SEVERAL VERY SMALL TREES ALONG WITH SOME LARGE LIMBS. THE TORNADO DISSIPATED AS IT MOVED NORTHEAST INTO A WOODED AREA NORTHWEST OF ELKMONT. |
From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.
This ground now
The live radar over the trackEvery 2009 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are
The other tornadoes of July 28, 2009
4 more were confirmed in the United States that day.
What this means
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.
Sources
NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.