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EF2 tornado in Lauderdale County, Alabama

Tornado December 23, 2015 · Lauderdale County, Alabama

EF2
Rating
14.9 mi
Whole path
150 yd
Path width
1
Injury
$100K
Damage as recorded

NOAA records this tornado county by county. Its path ran through Lauderdale County → Wayne County, Tennessee; the totals above are for the whole tornado.

EF0EF1EF2EF3EF4EF5Unrated

The path drawn at its surveyed width of 150 yards (0.09 mi) — zoom in and the swath grows to true scale. Other tornadoes recorded nearby that day are shown faint.

What EF2 means. On the Enhanced Fujita scale, EF2 is considerable damage: roofs torn off well-built houses, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, consistent with estimated gusts of 111–135 mph. The rating comes from a survey of the worst damage after the storm, not from a wind measurement, so it says as much about what the tornado hit as about how strong it was.

What the National Weather Service wrote

A tornado touched down initially near the intersection of Country Road 14 and County Road 54 north of Waterloo, in extreme western Lauderdale County. Multiple trees were snapped and uprooted along the nearby creek and along CR 54.

The next available damage was viewed along CR 1 south of CR 40. Many softwood and hardwood trees were snapped and uprooted along the hillside into the neighboring valley. The tornado damaged a single family home, removing large portions of the roofing marterial, and damaged the Williams Chapel Presbyterian Church where nearby residents were taking shelter. The tornado crossed CR 1, leaving almost no tree untouched in a large stand of pine trees.

The tornado continued over the hill to CR 40 where the most significant damage was observed. The tornado snapped numerous hardwood trees south of CR 40, caused minor damage to a single family residence, and pushed a mobile home off its foundation. Upon crossing CR 40, the tornado tore almost the entire roofing structure off a single family home, injuring one inhabitant, and tossing the debris into the trees behind it. The tornado continued over a small hill into a hollow, snapping and uprooting numerous trees along its path. The tornado continued into Wayne County Tennessee, approximately 1/2 mile north of CR 40.

The wider storm

A potent low pressure lifted from the central Plains into the upper Midwest on the 23rd, swinging a strong cold front east through the Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys. This generated an outbreak of severe weather and tornadoes through these regions. In northwest Alabama, a supercell produced an EF-2 tornado in Lauderdale County which tracked into southwest Tennessee.

Began near Waterloo (34.9540, -88.0731).

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event 606485. Narratives are written by the National Weather Service forecast office that issued the report.

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