EF0 tornado, Gantt Jct, Alabama, March 1, 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

March 1, 2016

Touchdown

6:42 PM CST (00:42 UTC)

Lifted

6:45 PM CST (00:45 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

3.0 miles (4.8 km)

Path width

80 yards (73 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Talladega County

Touchdown point

33.118, -86.225

Lift-off point

33.121, -86.174

Record number

1603011842-01

17 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 85 mph.

• cross directional trees, potential convergent signature
• numerous trees down, facing NE
• Guard rail damaged on either side of the road
• trees uprooted on north side of road facing north

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

A highly amplified upper-level trough approached the central Gulf Coast Region during the afternoon hours. A deepening surface low over the Ohio Valley Region pushed a strong cold southeast towards Alabama. By the middle of the afternoon, deep layer shear had increased to 60 knots with 0-3 km storm-relative helicity values between 200 and 300 m2/s2. Destabilization and shear profiles favored severe thunderstorms, including tornadoes and large hail.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in extreme southeastern Talladega County just southeast of Sylacauga and determined that the damage was consistent with an EF-0 tornado. Maximum winds were estimated to be around 80 mph. ||The tornado touched down along Settlement Road just west of Old Rockhouse Road. A few homes sustained shingle damage, and one outbuilding was destroyed, along with several uprooted trees at this location. The tornado continued northeast and knocked down trees and damaged several additional homes near Cherry and Heflin Lanes. The tornado turned to the east and tracked parallel to County Road 511. The most concentrated damaged occurred in the valley just west of the community of Overbrook, where numerous trees were snapped or uprooted. The tornado continued eastward and produced minor tree damage and lifted along County Road 511, just before the Clay County line. Six homes suffered damage and four outbuildings were damaged or destroyed.

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 severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 23:25 UTC and running to 02:03 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 19:48 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.

Sylacauga (SCD), 11 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of airport observations.

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 53 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 00:42 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.