EF1 tornado, Pleasant Hill to Double Spgs, 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

4:02 PM CDT (21:02 UTC)

Lifted

4:18 PM CDT (21:18 UTC)

On the ground

16 minutes

Path length

8.8 miles (14.1 km)

Path width

325 yards (297 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Winston County

Touchdown point

34.203, -87.428

Lift-off point

34.267, -87.297

Record number

2008281502-01

44 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.
• End Point. Tornado dissipated near a wooded area before crossing Cty Rd 2.
• three sided lumber shed destroyed. pole barn structure.

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

Tropical Cyclone Laura moved inland over southwest Louisiana and tracked northeast along the Mississippi River. Several convective outer bands on the east side of Laura produced severe storms over Central Alabama. An abundance of tropical moisture coincided with areas of diurnal heating to promote an unstable atmosphere which also interacted with areas of favorable low-level wind shear. Straight-line winds caused the majority of the damage both days, but a few tornadoes also developed during the afternoon of August 28th.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in northeastern Winston County and determined that it was consistent with an EF1 tornado, with maximum winds near 105 mph.||The tornado developed in a wooded area east of County Road 195. The tornado tracked northeast, crossing County Road 6 near Sandy Creek, where it caused minor timber damage. The tornado caused minor damage to the roof of a chicken house just off of County Road 415. The tornado continued northeast where it approached Highway 33 west of Moreland. The tornado caused notable timber damage as it crossed Highway 33, then it continued northeast across County Road 3163 where it removed sheathing from under a manufactured home, destroyed a small outbuilding, and removed portions of siding and sheathing from a manufactured home. The tornado then crossed County Road 63, or Cheatam Road, where it removed a portion of the roof from a manufactured home, damaged two garage doors, and blew out a window of an outdoor storage building. The tornado continued northeast before dissipating near Collier Creek.

NWS Meteorologists surveyed damage in northeastern Winston County and determined it was consistent with an EF1 tornado, with maximum winds near 95 mph.||The tornado developed near a mobile home manufacturing facility where it peeled portions of sheet metal from the roof of the building, removed some skirting from a modular building and blew out two windows from a vehicle. The tornado then crossed Highway 33 where it remained just north of County Road 24. The tornado continued east through wooded, uninhabited and inaccessible area. The tornado dissipated before reaching County Road 2, where there was no observable damage.

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.

The county was under a tornado watch, issued at 20:46 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.

Haleyville (1M4), 22 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Columbus AFB radar (KGWX), 97 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 21:03 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 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.