EF0 tornado, Vick to Brierfield, Alabama, December 16, 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

December 16, 2019

Touchdown

9:49 PM CST (03:49 UTC)

Lifted

9:55 PM CST (03:55 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

3.1 miles (5.0 km)

Path width

200 yards (183 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Bibb County

Touchdown point

32.980, -87.051

Lift-off point

32.986, -86.998

Record number

1912162149-01

23 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 90 mph.

• Estimated start point based on TDS.

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

A very warm and moist air mass developed over Central Alabama on Monday, December 16th. Afternoon temperatures warmed into the lower and middle 70s, which was 15 to 20 degrees above normal for the middle of December. A surface low tracked north of Alabama Monday night and pushed a strong cold across the state. Several bands of strong to severe storms developed across Mississippi during the afternoon and moved into west Alabama that evening. Most of the severe weather damage across Central Alabama was associated with a long track supercell that started in Mississippi and tracked into southwest Alabama. The supercell entered southern Sumter County and tracked northeast to Shelby County.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in east central Bibb County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph.||The tornado began northeast of the city of Centreville in an inaccessible area east of Gary Springs Loop Road, where a well-defined tornado debris signature was observed by the KBMX radar. The tornado tracked eastward and crossed County Road 57 and Pine Tree Road before dissipating near Tucker Road. A few trees were uprooted along the path.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in east Bibb County and determined that it was consistent with an EF1 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph.||The tornado began on the eastern edge of Brierfield Ironworks Park where several trees were uprooted. The tornado continued eastward and crossed State Route 139. At this location, dozens of trees were snapped and uprooted in the immediate vicinity of Mahan Creek. The tornado tracked eastward and damaged a barn on the Bridlewood Farms property before dissipating just west of County Road 1053.

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

47 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 03:02 UTC, 47 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 04:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 03:48 UTC and running to 05:09 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 00:37 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), 32 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:50 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

37 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.