EF0 tornado, Wedowee to Corbin, Alabama, March 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

March 14, 2019

Touchdown

10:00 PM CDT (03:00 UTC)

Lifted

10:09 PM CDT (03:09 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

4.4 miles (7.0 km)

Path width

75 yards (69 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Randolph County

Touchdown point

33.298, -85.491

Lift-off point

33.334, -85.429

Record number

1903142100-01

8 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 75 mph.

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

A widespread severe weather event occurred across central Alabama aduring the afternoon and evening hours on Thursday, March 14th. The event began in the northwest counties and spread eastward all the way to the Georgia state line. A strong low level jet of 40-50 knots, combined with moderate instability (1000-1500 J/kg) and 0-6km bulk shear of 55-50 knots, produced an atmosphere favorable for severe thunderstorms and supercells.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in Randolph County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph.||The tornado touched down near 4th Street West just west of Highway 431. At the onset there were several softwood trees uprooted. Damage was very spotty and isolated, suggestive of a fairly weak circulation. A barn/outbuilding was destroyed along with roofing damage to the corner of one of five chicken houses just east of County Road 56, with no nearby tree damage. The tornado lifted just before Highway 48.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS BMX issued a tornado warning for this county at 02:40 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 03:30 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 23:41 UTC and running to 05:00 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 01:00 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.

Carrollton (CTJ), 45 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Atlanta radar (KFFC), 83 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 03:02 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

31 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.