EF1 tornado, Rockford to Cottage Grove, Alabama, February 24, 2019

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

February 24, 2019

Touchdown

1:54 AM CST (07:54 UTC)

Lifted

2:01 AM CST (08:01 UTC)

On the ground

7 minutes

Path length

5.0 miles (8.1 km)

Path width

550 yards (503 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Coosa County

Touchdown point

32.868, -86.184

Lift-off point

32.880, -86.103

Record number

1902240154-01

19 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 95 mph.

• dead tree snapped. right edge.
• west and nw. tree on shed
• a few pines snapped several uprooted.

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

A east-west zone of deep moisture across north Alabama on February 22nd was located along the northern periphery of a 500mb ridge across Florida. A digging short wave trough over the Southwest United States produced several downstream impulses which produced localized heavy rainfall across Marion County. On the next day, the upper trough tracked northeast into Texas and produced a band of severe storms across Central Alabama.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in eastern Coosa County and determined that it was consistent with an EF1 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 95 mph.||The tornado touched down initially in a grove of pine trees just east of County Road 40 in Coosa County, uprooting about a half dozen mature trees. It then traveled east-northeastward to Nixburg Road, where several pines were uprooted, and a quarter of the metal roofing was peeled off a home. The tornado continued across a wooded area in the Little Sam Jack Creek basin and then crossed County Road 30 and County Road 101. Numerous pines were uprooted or snapped in this area, and a few hardwoods were uprooted. The tornado path then crossed Alabama Highway 22, where several pines and a hardwood were uprooted. One of the pines caused major damage to the corner of a manufactured home, and one uprooted hardwood grazed the front of another home causing minor damage. The tornado dissipated in the woods somewhere between Alabama Highway 22 and Alabama Highway 9.

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.

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 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.

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

1 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.