EF0 tornado, Gage, Alabama, May 14, 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

May 14, 2014

Touchdown

3:28 PM CDT (20:28 UTC)

Lifted

3:29 PM CDT (20:29 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.1 miles (0.2 km)

Path width

30 yards (27 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Clay County

Touchdown point

33.250, -85.949

Lift-off point

33.251, -85.950

Record number

1405141428-01

4 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 80 mph.

• several trees blown and leaning convergent. lots of debris in the roadway.
• National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed the damage in Clay County and have determined that the damage was due to an EF-0 tornado. Maximum winds were estimated to be 80 mph. This brief tornado touched down just south of Mines Road northwest of Millerville, with a few tree branches down. Along Mines Road there were several hardwood trees uprooted in a convergent pattern and lots of tree debris on the road. Just north of Mines Road more hardwood and softwood trees were uprooted for about one tenth of a mile, with a few small trees snapped. After that point it appears that the tornado lifted. In all there were about 25 to 30 trees uprooted or severely leaning over. No structure damage was observed. A special thanks to Eric Parker and David Hester who reported the damage along Mines Road.

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

Widespread showers and thunderstorms moved northward across Central Alabama Wednesday afternoon, May 14. This activity developed just ahead of an approaching cold front. The atmosphere was quite tropical with precipitable water values over 1.50 inches. Environmental parameters were marginal for the development of severe thunderstorms. However, isolated thunderstorms did exhibit some rotation across East Central Alabama.

A brief tornado, with maximum winds of 80 mph, touched down approximately 3.9 miles northwest of the community of Millerville, just south of Mines Road. The tornado continued north across Mines road and uprooted several hardwood trees along this road.

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

3 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 20:25 UTC, 3 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 20:38 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. The outlook in force was issued at 19:26 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 Birmingham radar (KBMX), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 20:27 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

8 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.