EF0 tornado, Brownville to Parkwood, Alabama, December 14, 2020

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

December 14, 2020

Touchdown

1:02 AM CST (07:02 UTC)

Lifted

1:08 AM CST (07:08 UTC)

On the ground

6 minutes

Path length

4.8 miles (7.7 km)

Path width

350 yards (320 m)

Deaths

0

Injuries

0

County

Jefferson County

Touchdown point

33.364, -86.943

Lift-off point

33.367, -86.861

Record number

2012140102-01

18 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 80 mph.

• Some suspicious tree liter and debris just w of here at thebendin Nixon rd. Just south of here, homes partially constructed had felt torn off roofs.
• A few rotted trees snapped. One small tree uprooted
• Rotted hardwood snapped. Trees on power lines. Several Pine snapped
• Fascia removed from cupula structure

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

A fast moving and intense short wave trough moving along the Gulf Coast states produced a closed surface low over southern Louisiana during the late afternoon hours on December 13th. The deepening surface low advanced northeast along the I-20 corridor during the overnight hours. A strongly sheared and low instability air mass resulted in a single tornado and several reports of wind damage across Jefferson and Shelby counties.

National Weather Service meteorologists surveyed damage in southern Jefferson County and determined that it was consistent with an EF0 tornado, with maximum winds near 80 mph. The tornado first touched down on Dusty Lane, causing damage mainly to weakened or shallow rooted trees. The tornado crossed Morgan Road and continued east across an inaccessible forested area, crossing Shades Creek and then passing just behind The Oaks on Parkwood Blvd. Scores of trees were either uprooted or snapped in the area, and minor structural damage was noted at The Oaks. The tornado continued eastward and reached its peak intensity as it crossed Parkwood Road just west of Alabama Highway 150, with a dozen or so very large hardwoods uprooted, causing damage to homes and vehicles. The tornado was also estimated to be at its maximum width of about 350 yards in this area as it crossed Alabama Highway 150. The tornado narrowed and weakened as it crossed another area of forested land, before snapping an older tree along Ross Bridge Parkway just west of Deer Valley Elementary School. The tornado skirted the north end of the school before ascending Shades Crest Mountain, then rapidly dissipated as it crossed Shades Crest Road.

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.

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.

Bessemer (EKY), 6 km from the path, in the two hours either side.

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

The Birmingham radar (KBMX), 25 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 07:03 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

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.