EF0 tornado, Sprott to Bethlehem, Alabama, April 14, 2019

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

April 14, 2019

Touchdown

3:21 AM CDT (08:21 UTC)

Lifted

3:31 AM CDT (08:31 UTC)

On the ground

10 minutes

Path length

6.7 miles (10.7 km)

Path width

400 yards (366 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Perry County

Touchdown point

32.690, -87.162

Lift-off point

32.767, -87.097

Record number

1904140221-01

26 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 80 mph.

• carport support removed and roof partial collapse
• entire section of supports and paneling removed

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

A very potent storm system moved out of the Southern Plains States and into the Central Gulf Coast Region Saturday and into Sunday morning. This system produced widespread severe weather from Texas to Alabama, including numerous tornadoes. A line of severe storms moved into West Alabama shortly before midnight Saturday night and progressed eastward across all of Central Alabama. The line of storms produced pockets of damaging straight line winds, localized flooding, and several tornadoes.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in Perry County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 80 mph. The tornado touched down near Iveys Chapel Church Road where a few trees were snapped. The tornado tracked northeast across inaccessible terrain until it crossed Mount Pilgrim Church Road where it uprooted some trees. The tornado continued northeast where it neared County Road 219 and removed a small portion of a farm shed. The tornado continued across agricultural fields then caused timber damage as it neared areas of trees. The tornado caused damage to homes just south of Melton Lane off of Highway 219. The tornado ripped nearly half of the roof off of a home and damaged siding. On the northwest side of the home strong winds pulled out two of the three support columns for the carport and that resulted in the roof partially collapsing. The tornado moved north along Highway 219 where it continued to cause notable timber damage. The tornado then tracked northeast across County Highway 183, where more timber damage occurred. The tornado continued northeast before dissipating near Barnette Road.

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 00:12 UTC and running to 09:50 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 06:01 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 Birmingham radar (KBMX), 60 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 08:20 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 2019 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

33 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.