Tornadoes · United States · Alabama · 2019

EF1 tornado, Royal to Brooksville, Alabama, April 8, 2019

From Royal to Brooksville, this EF1 tornado ran 6.3 miles across Blount County on April 8, 2019, touching down at 5:44 AM CDT and reaching 1,175 yards wide. It killed nobody.

The rating scale

Tracks are drawn in the color of the rating. The Enhanced Fujita scale rates the damage rather than measuring the wind: the speeds are what that damage is taken to imply.

  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.

The record

Rating
EF1
Date
April 8, 2019
Touchdown
5:44 AM CDT (10:44 UTC)
Lifted
5:53 AM CDT (10:53 UTC)
On the ground
9 minutes
Path length
6.3 miles (10.1 km)
Path width
1,175 yards (1074 m)
Deaths
0
Injuries
0
County
Blount County
Touchdown point
34.075, -86.527
Lift-off point
34.159, -86.487
Record number
1904080444-01

What the Weather Service recorded

A slow moving upper trough over the Southern Plains States produced a series of mesoscale convective systems that moved out of Mississippi and across north Alabama.|Drier air aloft produced steep mid level lapse rates each day which resulted in a number of hail reports on April 6th and 7th. Low level winds backed during the early morning hours on April 8th and briefly produced favorable conditions for a weak tornado.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in Blount County and determined that it was consistent with an EF1 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph. The tornado touched down along Graves Cemetery Road south of Blount County Road 26, where a few small trees were damaged. It tracked northeast across County Road 26, where two smaller farm buildings were destroyed, and continued northeast producing sporadic minor limb damage as it crossed Royal-Liberty Road. At this point the storm path widened to 1275 yards as it spread along a valley parallel to Highway 79. The damage also intensified as it crossed Martin Road, uprooting numerous hardwoods, snapping a grove of pines, and causing damage to chicken barns. From here the tornado crossed Highway 79, moving nearly parallel to it for the last 3 miles of the track. At this point the tornado uprooted or snapped numerous large hardwoods and softwoods. Several chicken barns were damaged, a larger hay barn was destroyed, with relatively minor damage to homes along Highway 79. The tornado dissipated in a wooded area just south of Highway 278.

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

The forecast that day

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Marginal Risk, with a 0.02 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 05:59 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.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the tornado touched down, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Birmingham, AL wrote its last area forecast discussion before the tornado touched down at Apr 8, 3:59 AM CDT, 1 hour 45 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Apr 8, 3:59 AM CDT, 1 hour 45 minutes before
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Hazardous weather outlook, Apr 8, 4:04 AM CDT, 1 hour 40 minutes before
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In the hours before

Special weather statement, Apr 8, 12:51 AM CDT, 4 hours 53 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Apr 8, 1:18 AM CDT, 4 hours 26 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Apr 8, 4:56 AM CDT, 48 minutes before
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Special weather statement, Apr 8, 5:23 AM CDT, 21 minutes before
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The air that afternoon

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.

Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 00:00Z

10.7 hours before the tornado, 107 km from the path. April 8, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Birmingham, AL at 00:00Z on 2019-04-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 581 joules per kilogram, CIN -35, lifted condensation level 1416 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Birmingham, AL at 00:00Z on 2019-04-08The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 62 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 37 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
581 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-35 J/kg
Surface CAPE
1348 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1416 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
37 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
13 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
62 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
82 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.1
Supercell composite
1.2
0-3 km lapse rate
6.7 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

Birmingham, AL (KBMX), 12:00Z

1.3 hours after it, 107 km from the path. April 8, 2019.

Skew-T log-pSkew-T log-p diagram, Birmingham, AL at 12:00Z on 2019-04-08Temperature and dew point through the depth of the atmosphere, with the mixed-layer parcel lifted from the surface. Mixed-layer CAPE 153 joules per kilogram, CIN -90, lifted condensation level 1012 meters above ground. Wind barbs in knots down the right edge.LCLLFCEL10008507005003002001001 km2 km3 km6 km9 km12 km15 km-30°-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°
Temperature in red, dew point in green, the mixed-layer parcel dashed. The warm shading is its CAPE, the cool shading the inhibition it has to break through.
HodographHodograph, Birmingham, AL at 12:00Z on 2019-04-08The wind through the lowest 10 kilometers as a curve, rings every 10 meters per second labeled in knots. Zero to 1 km storm-relative helicity 140 square meters per square second, 0 to 6 km bulk shear 35 knots.193958Sfc1 km3 km6 km9 kmRMLM
The wind turning with height, colored by layer: ground to 1 km, 1 to 3 km, 3 to 6 km, 6 to 10 km. RM and LM are the right and left moving storms Bunkers' method gives; the shaded area is the 0 to 1 km storm-relative helicity.
Mixed-layer CAPE
153 J/kg
Mixed-layer CIN
-90 J/kg
Surface CAPE
390 J/kg
Mixed-layer LCL
1012 m above ground
0-6 km bulk shear
35 kt
0-1 km bulk shear
25 kt
0-1 km storm-relative helicity
140 m²/s²
0-3 km storm-relative helicity
204 m²/s²
Significant tornado parameter
0.0
Supercell composite
0.3
0-3 km lapse rate
5.8 K/km

Open this sounding in Storm Lab

The surface observations

Albertville (BFZ), 27 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

Time (UTC)Temp (°F)Dew point (°F)WindGust (kt)Pressure (mb)Weather
00:00 UTC

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

The radar

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 98 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 10:40 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.

This ground now

The live radar over the trackEvery 2019 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

The other tornadoes of April 8, 2019

2 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

DateTimeRatingWherePath (mi)Width (yd)DeathsInjuriesDamage
April 85:15 AM CDTEF0Blount, AL2.2325
April 87:10 AM CDTEF1Marshall, AL6.12191

What this means

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.

Sources

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.