EF1 tornado, Guin to Whitehouse, Alabama, November 30, 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 30, 2016

Touchdown

12:01 AM CST (06:01 UTC)

Lifted

12:24 AM CST (06:24 UTC)

On the ground

23 minutes

Path length

16.9 miles (27.1 km)

Path width

900 yards (823 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Marion County

Touchdown point

33.952, -87.900

Lift-off point

34.092, -87.662

Record number

1611300001-01

111 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 127 mph.

• Start point of Chicken Foot Rd EF-1 Tornado. Tree down, minor damage to garage.
• power lines down, tornado crossed Antioch Rd
• rebar extended into ground 6 places to anchor shed, blown into metal storage structure
• front Porch with 6x6 posts remain, roof blown off. Start point of Ash Ridge EF-1 Tornado.

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

A warm front moved northward during the day on Tuesday, November 29th, and surface temperatures climbed into the 70s across north Alabama. Low level shear and storm relative helicity increased over west Alabama Tuesday evening and discrete supercells developed over west Alabama.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in southern Marion County and determined that the damage was consistent with an EF-1 tornado, with maximum winds estimated near 90 mph.||The same storm that produced the Lamar County Airport Tornado continued to move northeast, and eventually caused a tornado in Marion County. This tornado touched down about a mile south of the city of Guin on County Road 69. From there, the tornado quickly widened as it moved to the northeast. As the tornado crossed US Highway 43, it caused significant damage to the roof of a restaurant, and snapped and uprooted several large trees. The tornado then crossed County Roads 27 and 164, and Alabama Highway 253, causing damage to numerous trees and several outbuildings. As the tornado approached and crossed Interstate 22, the damage path narrowed and the damage was barely discernible. The damage path slowly widened again as passed to the northwest of the Brilliant Community, damaging many more trees. A wooden barn structure was significantly damaged on County Road 36 northwest of Brilliant. From there, the path continued northeast over mostly rural farmland, producing more tree damage on Alabama Highway 129, County Roads 46, 171, and 70, and Alabama Highway 233. From there, the tornado began to narrow once again, and it finally lifted near Crooked Creek Road, just south of US Highway 278.

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

26 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 05:35 UTC, 26 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 06:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 02:50 UTC and running to 09:55 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 General Thunderstorms Risk. The outlook in force was issued at 05:23 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.

Haleyville (1M4), 33 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 52 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 05:59 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

16 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.