EF2 tornado, Goshen to Needmore, Alabama, December 25, 2012

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 25, 2012

Touchdown

10:24 PM CST (04:24 UTC)

Lifted

10:40 PM CST (04:40 UTC)

On the ground

16 minutes

Path length

15.7 miles (25.3 km)

Path width

600 yards (549 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

2

County

Pike County

Touchdown point

31.725, -86.147

Lift-off point

31.884, -85.957

Record number

1212252224-01

59 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX and NWS MOB, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 120 mph.

• .Large area of HW trees snapped and uprooted parallelling hwy 25, approximately 600 yds wide. Walls on a concrete block home collapsed.
• .SW completely obliterated as it tumbled off site into woods. John Deere backhoe moved about 50 feet.
• .Barn and shed. Large HW uprooted.
• .right edge tree damage at edge of field.

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Late Christmas Eve, a well amplified upper level trough dug into the southern Plains. In response, a surface low developed Christmas morning over southern Texas. As the upper low deepened and tilted negatively, the surface low strengthened as it moved eastward. By Christmas afternoon, a swath of severe weather swept across the Deep South, with discrete supercells and a broken line of thunderstorms in trail. These thunderstorms moved across central Alabama during the evening hours, bringing with them strong straight line winds, numerous tornadoes, as well as flooding.

An EF-2 tornado touched down just inside the county line on Brantley Road near an open field causing only minor tree damage. It traveled northeast to County Road (CR) 2219, where it caused significant damage to 2 chicken barns, a home and a small barn before crossing CR 2201. As it continued to the northeast, the tornado traveled parallel to the Conecuh River on CR 2214 for more than two miles, causing widespread damage with hundreds of trees snapped or uprooted and damaging several homes. As it passed CR 11, a single-wide manufactured home had its anchors ripped out of the ground and rolled 75 yards into a wooded area, while leaving the wooden post porch intact. The home fell apart as it rolled, leaving a trail of debris that lead into the woods, where the frame split in two and was wrapped around the trees. Two occupants were injured and required medical attention. The tornado continued over mainly fields and wooded areas, crossing Hwy 29 just west of CR 1165. The tornado crossed the Conecuh River and intensified as it approached the River Ridge Subdivision on CR 1101. Numerous large tall trees were uprooted, scores of pines were snapped, and a portion of the wall of a brick home collapsed causing major damage. From there, it continued northeast to the Brantley Woods Motor Home Park just north of CR 1148 on the west side of US Hwy 231, between the Troy Airport and the Conecuh River. A large swath of softwood trees were mowed down about 20 feet off the ground, and 3 single-wide manufactured homes were destroyed. One of the homes had its anchors ripped out of the ground and begin to roll, but because the park was heavily wooded, it was stopped from tumbling over onto and crushing the next home. From there, the tornado continued over marshy low lands and forested areas for another 3 miles before lifting at CR 103 north of Needmore Road.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:18 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:25 UTC and running to 06:00 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 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 01:01 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.

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 2012 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

32 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.