EF0 tornado, Leesburg to Blue Pond, Alabama, April 19, 2015

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, 2015

Touchdown

8:38 AM CDT (13:38 UTC)

Lifted

8:43 AM CDT (13:43 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

3.5 miles (5.7 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cherokee County

Touchdown point

34.183, -85.778

Lift-off point

34.224, -85.740

Record number

1504190738-01

8 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.

• uprooted tree destroyed home and vehicle. widest pt of 200 yds here
• uprooted trees destroyed barn
• 2 trees damaged. mainly debris field. 100 yds wide
• porch damage tree uprooted. 50 yds wide

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

A deepening short wave moving through the southern Plains States produced widespread lift across Alabama during the morning hours on April 19th. At the same time, a surface warm front lifted northward across south Alabama and pulled warm and unstable air into central Alabama. Several tornadoes formed in the warm sector south of the warm front. Later that day and into the overnight hours, a cold front approached Alabama from the west and triggered severe thunderstorms development, mainly across the northern portions of central Alabama.

A weak tornado touched down in extreme northwestern Cherokee County just northwest of the city of Leesburg. The tornado touched down along Keener Dr, west of state road 68, uprooting and snapping multiple hard and softwood trees. One of the larger hardwood trees unfortunately fell into a residence causing substantial damage to both the home and vehicle. Just further downstream, a barn was also destroyed by an uprooted tree along Bristow Gap Rd. The tornado was also at its widest point here of approximately 200 yards. The tornado continued north-northeast crossing State Road 68 causing damage to additional trees. The tornado lifted near the intersection of County Road 166 and County Road 670, but not before causing some minor porch and siding damage to another residence. Estimated peak wind was 80 mph.

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

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 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 12:55 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), 86 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 13:35 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 2015 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

21 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.