EF0 tornado, Pickwick Lake, Alabama, December 17, 2016

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

December 17, 2016

Touchdown

11:37 PM CST (05:37 UTC)

Lifted

11:38 PM CST (05:38 UTC)

On the ground

1 minutes

Path length

0.6 miles (1.0 km)

Path width

87 yards (80 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Colbert County

Touchdown point

34.820, -88.080

Lift-off point

34.830, -88.070

Record number

1612172337-01

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

• move points closer towards road from previous location
• Tree uprooted but not conducive for 70 mph winds.

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

A line of thunderstorms produced two brief tornadoes in northwest Alabama. The line continued east producing strong and damaging winds in a few locations in northwest Alabama before crossing the rest of north Alabama during the early morning hours of the 18th.

A survey team from the National Weather Service and Colbert County Emergency Management investigated significant tree damage in the Riverton area. The damage was associated with a weak tornado embedded in a line of thunderstorms along a cold front. Numerous softwood trees were either uprooted or snapped just east of Bear Creek along Riverton Rose Trail. Damage was conducive to an EF-0 tornado with maximum winds speeds of 85 MPH.

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

10 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:27 UTC, 10 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:58 UTC and running to 07:40 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, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 01:00 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 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), 106 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:37 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 2016 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

2 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.