EF0 tornado, Reform No Pickens Ar to Palmetto, Alabama, February 23, 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 23, 2016

Touchdown

4:22 PM CST (22:22 UTC)

Lifted

4:31 PM CST (22:31 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Pickens County

Touchdown point

33.394, -87.967

Lift-off point

33.463, -87.980

Record number

1602231622-01

13 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.

• Minor damage. Path Width 50 yds.
• A few panels of roof off of a chicken barn
• Single cedar snapped. Left edge.
• Approximate start point based on TDS

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

A trough of low pressure at 500 milibars was analyzed near the New Mexico and Texas border. A weak shortwave trough was also analyzed across northwest Mississippi. At the surface, a stationary front was draped from McComb, Mississippi, eastward to near a Tuscaloosa to Anniston, Alabama line. A surface low began to deepen over east Texas producing strengthening low level wind fields. Despite limited surface based instability over central Alabama due to persistent low clouds, the atmosphere was characterized by deep shear and increasing instability aloft.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage northeast of the city of Reform and determined that the damage was consistent with an EF-0 tornado. Maximum winds were estimated to be around 85 mph. The tornado touched down in a wooded area near Wild Goose Creek, due south of the intersection of Ollie Bonner Road and Pickens County Road 49. From there, it moved on a slightly west of due north path as it crossed CR-49 and CR-3. The tornado ultimately lifted just north of where Beaver Creek Road crosses over Beaver Creek. The tornado remained over a rural and wooded area through almost its entire path, and damage largely consisted of trees that were either uprooted or snapped. In the area near Ollie Bonner Road and CR-49, one home and one shed each received minor roof damage.

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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 20:00 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), 62 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:24 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

38 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.