EF1 tornado, Jones Chapel to Battleground, Alabama, August 28, 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

August 28, 2020

Touchdown

5:27 PM CDT (22:27 UTC)

Lifted

5:36 PM CDT (22:36 UTC)

On the ground

9 minutes

Path length

5.6 miles (8.9 km)

Path width

115 yards (105 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Cullman County

Touchdown point

34.244, -87.102

Lift-off point

34.286, -87.020

Record number

2008281627-01

30 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 EF1. The highest wind the damage implies is 100 mph.

• Tornado likely continued eastward and then dissipated in a relatively inaccessible wooded area west of Collier Creek.

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

Several miniature supercells and clusters of thunderstorms affected the area beginning during the late morning of the 28th and lasting through the afternoon. Two tornadoes occurred with these storms in Cullman and Morgan Counties. Several other reports of thunderstorm wind damage were received. During the evening hours, a secondary band of thunderstorms dropped southeast into northwest Alabama producing gusty winds and more localized wind damage.

A storm survey concluded that the damage in northwestern Cullman County was consistent with an EF-1 tornado with winds up to 87 mph. It appeared that the tornado touched down near CR 1069 where it caused minor damage to a farm building and knocked down several small to large tree branches. Damage was noted on a path between CR 1069 and CR 1059. At CR 1059, several trees were either snapped or uprooted. The most intense damage was noted with two small farm structures that were destroyed and a single-wide mobile home that was knocked off its piers but remained upright. The mobile home remained attached to its straps and the straps to I-beams. However one I-beam and one strap were dislodged on the front end of the mobile home. The tornado continued between CR 1059 and CR 1082 near the CR 1083 intersection where more large trees were uprooted. The tornado continued between CR 1082 and SR 157 and then|lifted before reaching SR 157.

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

2 minutes of warning. NWS HUN issued a tornado warning for this county at 22:25 UTC, 2 minutes before the tornado touched down, in force until 23:00 UTC.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:48 UTC and running to 01:00 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 20:00 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.

The Northeast Alabama radar (KHTX), 116 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 22:26 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

12 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.