EF1 tornado, Christian Home to Bryant, Alabama, November 29, 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 mphthis tornado

   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

EF1

Date

November 29, 2016

Touchdown

11:00 PM CST (05:00 UTC)

Lifted

11:03 PM CST (05:03 UTC)

On the ground

3 minutes

Path length

2.3 miles (3.7 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Jackson County

Touchdown point

34.870, -85.710

Lift-off point

34.890, -85.670

Record number

1611292300-01

94 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF3. The highest wind the damage implies is 145 mph.

• Note terminte damage to floor plates connecting to foundation. Lowerd DI to walls collapsed and maxed winds at 145mph.
• Noted terminte damage to floor plates connecting to foundation. Lowerd DI to walls collapsed and maxed winds at 145mph.
• two passenger vans were shifted 90 degrees from their parking spots.
• metal pole bent with snapped power lines

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

A tornado outbreak occurred during the evening hours of the 29th into the early morning hours of the 30th. A very mild and unstable air mass was in place along with a strong southwesterly upper level jet. These ingredients combined with a cold front and pre-frontal trough sweeping from west to east across the area sparked scattered supercell thunderstorms during the evening, a few of which were tornadic. This was followed by a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) that occurred with the trough, which also was responsible for severe weather. Beneficial rainfall occurred with this system with 2-5 inches reported. Some of the rainfall fell fast enough to produce brief flash flooding in the Florence area during the evening.

A survey team from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) relayed reports of damage and geocoded photographs along CR-690, south of Bryant, AL (Jackson County). NWS Huntsville, after coordination with UAH and investigation of the photos and radar data, determined the damage was associated with a weak EF-1 tornado.||The bulk of the damage was generally observed along CR-690, between CR-691 and CR-676. Damage indicators were limited to snapped soft wood trees and/or snapped large branches. While the majority of the damage was indicative of an EF-0 tornado, there was a small path of EF-1 damage just to the west of CR-676. In this area, several healthy softwood trees were snapped before the tornado weakened as it approached a ridge on the east side of CR-676.

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

6 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 04:54 UTC, 6 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 05:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 04:28 UTC and running to 08:54 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 00:51 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 Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 36 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:00 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

21 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.