EF2 tornado, Hartselle to Bluff City, Alabama, March 31, 2016

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF2

Date

March 31, 2016

Touchdown

9:54 PM CDT (02:54 UTC)

Lifted

10:14 PM CDT (03:14 UTC)

On the ground

20 minutes

Path length

9.6 miles (15.4 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Morgan and Limestone counties

Touchdown point

34.468, -86.930

Lift-off point

34.556, -86.802

Record number

1603312054-01

124 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS ABR and NWS GYX and NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 115 mph.

• Half dozen tombstones pushed over
• fallen tree crushed carport
• rv pushed over...unsecured
• Bark was twisted off on multiple trees. This is a picture of an example of what was observed.

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

Supercell and multi-cell cluster thunderstorms affected much of the Tennessee Valley in advance of a strong cold front during the late afternoon and evening hours of the 31st. One of the cells produced an EF-2 tornado in Morgan County and extreme southeastern Limestone County.

NWS ground surveys supplemented by the use a NOAA ARL UAS, a private UAS provided through a NOAA contractor, and NASA SPoRT high-resolution satellite imagery determined the tornado touched down approximately .67 miles southwest of the intersection of Indian Hill Road Northeast and Roberts Catfish Lane in Hartselle. Multiple hardwood trees were snapped at the beginning of the tornado track. From there, the tornado damaged several mobile homes on Roberts Catfish Lane. One of the mobile homes rolled 45-50 yards to the northeast after snapping all 6 of the tie-downs that anchored the home. The unit was mostly destroyed with the frame of the structure still largely intact. The second mobile home at this location separated from its porch and was shifted off its foundation about 10 feet. A wooden tin carport structure housing lawn and farm equipment was partially destroyed, with pieces of the wood embedded in the ground around the mobile homes. A small sedan parked at the second mobile home was lifted and had the front end embedded briefly in the ground, tearing off the front bumper, which was found 10 feet away. debris from these buildings was found half a mile to the northeast from this location at the next area of damage surveyed. Path width at this location was about 50 yards.||About half a mile northeast, just west of interstate 65 on Bethel Circle Northeast, widespread tree damage was surveyed. Large hardwood trees about 2 feet in diameter were found snapped, sheared and twisted off about 10-15 feet from their bases. Multiple trees had the bark twisted off and strewn about the forest. Of the few homes that were within the tree damage area, only minor damage was noted to a couple of the houses. Most of this damage was from siding being blown off or from trees directly clipping the edge of a roof as they fell. The vast majority of the tree damage at this location was on property along Village Branch Cree behind the homes. Path width at this location was about 200 yards.||The tornado appeared to lift briefly before setting down again along Bethel Road near the intersection with Spring Valley Road, just east of Interstate 65. Several trees were uprooted at the Walnut Grove Baptist Church, and several gravestones were pushed over or broken. Numerous pine trees were snapped in a clear, coherent path as the tornado continued to the northeast.||Tree damage became more consistent and widespread along Shoal Creek Road and White Oak Drive. Hundreds of softwood and hardwood trees were snapped and uprooted in this general area, and there was some minor structural damage to a few single family homes. The tree damage was more widespread as the tornado moved into the Autumn Wood Trail area. Trees fell onto a single family home and damaged it.||The most significant structural damage occurred near the intersection of Thompson Lane and Peach Orchard Road. IN this area, multiple sheds were completely destroyed and most of the shingles on the roof of a single family home were torna off. Once again, numerous pine trees were snapped. The tornado appeared to weaken slightly as it moved towards Uper River Road. There was some modest tree damage in a field east of Thomson Lane, and many of the shingles on the roof of a single family home were damaged or removed.||The tornado continued northeast to Turkey Mountain, Road, where it snapped several more trees and pushed a double-wide mobile home off its piers and damage the roof. Based on damage viewed from Turkey Mountain Road, it is believed that the tornado continued to near the Tennessee River.

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 23:00 UTC and running to 03:23 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 Enhanced Risk, with a 0.10 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:54 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.

Huntsville/Madison (HSV), 16 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 85 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 02:55 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

19 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.