EF0 tornado, Hogglesville to Morgan Spgs, 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

9:03 PM CST (03:03 UTC)

Lifted

9:12 PM CST (03:12 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

5.3 miles (8.6 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

Counties

Hale and Perry counties

Touchdown point

32.770, -87.493

Lift-off point

32.816, -87.419

Record number

1912162103-01

6 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.

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 eastern Hale County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph.||The tornado touched down along County Road 32 in eastern Hale County where a few pine trees were uprooted. The tornado tracked northeast and crossed into Perry County about one-half mile south of Massengale Road.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in northwest Perry County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 80 mph.||This is a continuation of a tornado path that began in Hale County. The tornado entered Perry County about one-half mile south of Massengale Road. The tornado tracked northeast across Fellowship Cemetery Road and Little Brush Creek and dissipated just east of County Road 29. At least one hundred trees were snapped or uprooted along the path.

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

54 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:09 UTC, 54 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 21:47 UTC and running to 04:02 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 00:37 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), 77 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:03 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.