EF0 tornado, Mathews, Alabama, February 15, 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

February 15, 2016

Touchdown

4:00 PM CST (22:00 UTC)

Lifted

4:05 PM CST (22:05 UTC)

On the ground

5 minutes

Path length

2.5 miles (4.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Montgomery County

Touchdown point

32.235, -86.024

Lift-off point

32.264, -85.999

Record number

1602151600-01

16 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 81 mph.

• A few small branches on inflow side.
• small limbs across road. 50 yds wide.
• 2 pines topped. approximate start point
• Estimated end point. No discernable damage on AL 110.

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

A sharp 500 MB upper trof shifted eastward along the Lower Mississippi Valley. As the upper trof approached the Mississippi River, a surface low developed over southern Mississippi and deepened as it tracked northeast into central Alabama. A mixture of high precipitation (HP) supercells and line segments developed and consolidated into a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) south of Interstate 85 and east of Interstate 65, producing straight-line wind damage and four tornadoes.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in northeastern Montgomery County and determined that the damage was consistent with an EF-0 tornado. Winds were estimated to be around 80 mph. ||The tornado first touched down just south of Lawson Road, where it toppled 2 trees. It then proceeded northeast and paralleled Lawson Road. As the tornado approached Flowers Road, additional damage occurred to a metal building, where a portion of the roof and side panels were removed. Here, the tornado was at its strongest point with winds estimated at 80 mph. Roughly 300 yards past Flowers Road, additional 80 mph winds associated with the tornado collapsed another outbuilding. The tornado continued northeast, and additional large limbs were down until the tornado lifted before reaching Dani Lane.

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. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 18:02 UTC and running to 00:15 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 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 19:56 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 Maxwell AFB radar (KMXX), 38 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:58 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

16 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.