EF0 tornado, Pleasant Ridge to Wiginton, Alabama, April 28, 2014

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 28, 2014

Touchdown

5:38 PM CDT (22:38 UTC)

Lifted

5:53 PM CDT (22:53 UTC)

On the ground

15 minutes

Path length

7.7 miles (12.4 km)

Path width

100 yards (91 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Property damage

$15,000

County

Marion County

Touchdown point

34.185, -87.998

Lift-off point

34.246, -87.887

Record number

1404281638-01

6 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF0. The highest wind the damage implies is 85 mph.

• a dozen trees uprooted or snapped damage width 100 yards
• just a few trees down poor constructed shed
• 3 or 4 trees uprooted a few shingles missing from roof.
• just a couple of small pines snapped

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

A large scale severe weather event began Saturday, April 26 and ended Wednesday, April 30th, producing several waves of severe weather from the Central Plains eastward through the Deep South, and across a significant portion of the eastern United States. Strong and violent tornadoes, very large hail, flash flooding, and damaging straight line winds accompanied this dynamic storm system. The most tornadoes occurred across the Deep South as the system moved into Mississippi and Alabama on Monday, April 28th. Supercell thunderstorms developed during the afternoon over eastern Mississippi and northwest Alabama in the warm sector well ahead of a cold front. The activity slowly spread east and southeast overnight, with this wave of severe storms ending early Tuesday morning. Storms redeveloped late Tuesday afternoon and moved into Central Alabama. A large area of rainfall across the northern Gulf Coast limited the amount of instability across the area, and storms remained below severe limits. The last wave of severe weather occurred early Wednesday morning across the south as an isolated storm produced large hail, as the system finally pulled east of the area.

A tornado touched down near the intersection of County Road 75 and Bishop Road, in a rural area northwest of the city of Hamilton. It tracked northeastward through a largely rural area in central Marion County between the cities of Hamilton and Hackleburg. The tornado caused mostly tree damage as it crossed County Road 29, Highway 187, County Road 41, and Highway 43. One building on County Road 29, where winds were strongest at 85 mph, had some shingles blow off, a shed was destroyed, and a dozen trees were downed. The tornado lifted along Highway 43 near Traverse Station Road southwest of Hackleburg city limits.

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

11 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:27 UTC, 11 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 17:40 UTC and running to 02:00 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 High Risk, with a 0.30 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 19:20 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 Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 50 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:38 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 2014 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

52 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.