EF2 tornado, Huntsville Mills Arp to Grays Chapel, 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 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

November 29, 2016

Touchdown

9:29 PM CST (03:29 UTC)

Lifted

10:00 PM CST (04:00 UTC)

On the ground

31 minutes

Path length

19.9 miles (31.9 km)

Path width

150 yards (137 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Madison and Jackson counties

Touchdown point

34.740, -86.530

Lift-off point

34.890, -86.240

Record number

1611292129-01

105 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• Roof above garage removed, along with portions of the roof covering the adjoining room. It was a combination of the winds and the way the garage was facing that led to the level of damage at this house.
• large swaths of privacy fence taken out neighborhood-wide. about 50 yards or so on either side of this point.
• roof may have been nailed in. was being renovated at the time
• farmhouse was already in poor shape.

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.

Initial continuous damage was found along the leading edge of Monte Sano Mountain close to the intersection of Monte Sano Blvd. and Nolan Avenue. Several trees were snapped and uprooted as it moved along the northern brow of the mountain. A clear, continuous path of snapped trees was observed just north of the RV campground area of Monte Sano State Park. From here, the tornado skipped down the northeast face of the mountain, caused minor tree damage near Wall Road, US Highway 72, and Morring Road.||More significant damage resumed near Ryland Pike near its intersection with Delta Pine Dr. Trees were snapped on Ryland Pike, then the tornado entered the Central Estates neighborhood. At least 15 houses had at least some roof decking removed in the neighborhood. A few houses had large sections of the roof structure removed, including one house on Moontown Road which had its entire roof and roof structure removed. Elsewhere around the neighborhood, many more houses had at least superficial damage to fascias and gutters, or had privacy fencing blown away.||The Flint Ridge horse farm suffered significant damage. Nearly all of the tin roofing was removed from one large and one small horse barn, and a riding arena was completely destroyed. Nearly all of the trees within 50-75 yards of the farm buildings were snapped. The tornado was clearly at its strongest between the house that lost all roofing, and the horse farm damage. At this location, the peak intensity is set at 125 MPH, an EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The tornado continued over a nearby ridge and weakened slightly, snapping and uprooting more trees along Hurricane Creek Road, Sharps Cove Road, and Neal Drive. Additional damage to houses was noted along Sharps Cove and Neal Drive, where roofing was peeled off a manufactured home and nearby single family home.

DEC 2 2016 Update...|NWS and UAH survey team determined that the Monte Sano EF-2 tornado|tracked into Western Jackson County and crossed over Putnam|Mountain. The team observed mainly EF-1 and EF-0 damage. Numerous|hardwood trees were either snapped or uprooted as the tornado|crossed the western slope of Putnam Mountain along with a homestead|sustaining minor roof damage and damage to a small shed. Near the ridge |top, significant tree damage was reported near a small camp ground. Several|camper trailer sustained damage from the downed trees. Additional|ridge top tree damage was observed slightly further to the WSW along CR-303|but was rated lower to slight beetle rot. The tornado continued downslope |where more hardwood trees were snapped or uprooted along with a camper trailer|that destroyed in the valley.

The parent supercell thunderstorm that produced the Monte Sano EF-2 tornado also produced a separate area of rotation that caused the EF-1 Estillfork tornado. The National Weather Service and University of Alabama in Huntsville surveys found significant softwood tree damage in the form of healthy and snapped pine trees along CR-9, east of the CR-9 and CR-141 intersection. The convergence of the down trees was evident at several locations along CR-9 and in the Estillfork area. Peak winds were determined to be 95 MPH.

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

22 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:07 UTC, 22 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 00:48 UTC and running to 04:28 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 00:51 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.

Huntsville/Madison County Exec (MDQ), 17 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), 30 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:26 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.