EF1 tornado, Cold Spgs to Walter, Alabama, April 12, 2020

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

April 12, 2020

Touchdown

9:00 PM CDT (02:00 UTC)

Lifted

9:09 PM CDT (02:09 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

5.4 miles (8.7 km)

Path width

300 yards (274 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cullman County

Touchdown point

34.074, -86.875

Lift-off point

34.094, -86.784

Record number

2004122000-01

55 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS BMX and NWS HUN, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 117 mph.

• not sure what to make of this
• dozen trees uprooted... minor tree damage in the field to the northwest
• grove of trees ~100 years east of road
• Drone Footage of softwoods snapped and uprooted, clearly convergent damage pattern.

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

Heavy rainfall occurred across the entire NWS Huntsville County Warning area, as well as damage from thunderstorm winds and a few tornadoes. ||While heavy rainfall reports were spread out across the CWFA, the most significant flash flooding occurred in Fort Payne and surrounding areas in Northeast Alabama. ||Intense rainfall of 6-6.5 inches fell in DeKalb County along Big Wills Creek.||A new Flood of Record crest of 17.94 feet occurred, surpassing the old Flood of Record (14.36) by a whopping 3.5 feet! More than 50 roads were shut down, with extensive flooding that occurred on Hwy 35 leading up to the Hwy 35/I459 interchange.

The tornado touched down just southwest of County Road 94 near Coon Creek. It moved along a northeasterly track, uprooting several trees. As it crossed County Road 107, several chicken houses were completely destroyed and dozens of trees were uprooted. It continued to the northeast, snapping or uprooting trees and damaging a shed along County Road 108. After crossing County Road 108 and snapping or uprooting several more trees, the tornado lifted just southwest of County Road 222.

The tornado touched down just west of Beech Grove Road just south of Good Hope before crossing Interstate 65 near mile marker 302 where dozens of trees were snapped or uprooted. The tornado continued on an east-northeast track crossing County Road 490 and County Road 573 uprooting dozens more trees. As the tornado neared Highway 31 along Day Gap Road, it intensified and removed the roof from a single wide trailer and caused more concentrated tree damage. The tornado crossed Highway 31 and continued to the east-northeast causing damage to a gas station and uprooting or snapping several more trees. The tornado lifted just east of County Road 599.

A brief tornado touched down near the junction of County Road 749 and County Road 747 just south of the Welti Community. The tornado moved to the southeast where it uprooted several trees and destroyed a small shed. It crossed County Road 747 and uprooted a few more trees before lifting east of County Road 747 near Glasscock Creek.

The tornado touched down just east of County Road 640 near the Duck River and move to the northeast. Along its path, it uprooted numerous trees and removed the metal roofing on a chicken house as it move across County Road 645. The tornado intensified as it crossed County Road 703 and removed the roof of a home. |Another home along County Road 781 had its roof removed. The tornado continued briefly to the northeast, uprooting more trees and removing the metal roofing of a barn. The tornado lifted just east of County Road 771 near Buzzard Branch.

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

20 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 01:40 UTC, 20 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 02:15 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:20 UTC and running to 03:14 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 Moderate Risk, with a 0.15 chance of a tornado within 25 miles, in the hatched area where significant tornadoes were expected. The outlook in force was issued at 00:58 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), 102 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:57 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 2020 tornado in AlabamaEvery tornado in Alabama since 1950Warnings in force in Alabama nowThe forecast where you are

72 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

All 73 of them

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.